contemporary
Herman Melville was an American writer, poet, and sailor.
Melville's hardship-filled youth ended on a whaling ship. He returned from his adventures in the South Seas in October 1844, and wrote "Taipi" the following spring. The book was based on the events surrounding Melville's desertion from the whaling ship Acushnet in 1842 and subsequent adventures in the Marquesas Islands.
Melville wrote several other novels and short stories and many poems, but during his lifetime his works were little appreciated by his contemporaries. Only in the 1920s began to rethink Melville, and he was recognized as a classic of world literature. World fame Melville already in the 20th century brought irrational novel "Moby Dick".
![SHTEINGEIL, Baron Vecheslav. Imperatorskaia Rossiiskaia Gvardiia [Imperial Russian Guard 1700-1878: Chronological Tables]. St Petersburg: 1878. Folio. (Spotted). Contemporary half calf (rubbed) [Lyons 4] – Imperatorskaia Gvardiia po 1 Maia 1899 [The Imper](/assets/image/picture_1874108/fb43b/80733ba0276477fba13b6821a60dcbd51638140400jpg__fix_374_244.jpeg)
![SHTEINGEIL, Baron Vecheslav. Imperatorskaia Rossiiskaia Gvardiia [Imperial Russian Guard 1700-1878: Chronological Tables]. St Petersburg: 1878. Folio. (Spotted). Contemporary half calf (rubbed) [Lyons 4] – Imperatorskaia Gvardiia po 1 Maia 1899 [The Imper](https://veryimportantlot.com/assets/image/picture_1874108/fb43b/80733ba0276477fba13b6821a60dcbd51638140400jpg__fix_374_244.jpeg)
Isaac Newton was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, alchemist, theologian, and author (described in his time as a "natural philosopher"), widely recognised as one of the greatest mathematicians and physicists and among the most influential scientists of all time. He was a key figure in the philosophical revolution known as the Enlightenment. His book Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy), first published in 1687, established classical mechanics. Newton also made seminal contributions to optics, and shares credit with German mathematician Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz for developing infinitesimal calculus.
In the Principia, Newton formulated the laws of motion and universal gravitation that formed the dominant scientific viewpoint until it was superseded by the theory of relativity. Newton used his mathematical description of gravity to derive Kepler's laws of planetary motion, account for tides, the trajectories of comets, the precession of the equinoxes and other phenomena, eradicating doubt about the Solar System's heliocentricity. He demonstrated that the motion of objects on Earth and celestial bodies could be accounted for by the same principles. Newton's inference that the Earth is an oblate spheroid was later confirmed by the geodetic measurements of Maupertuis, La Condamine, and others, convincing most European scientists of the superiority of Newtonian mechanics over earlier systems.
![Illustrations of Constantinople, [1838], first edition, deluxe issue, contemporary portfolio](/assets/image/picture_3108867/b9192/m3vzmgv28tglz3nsnnwspanj2jjgnulrozx9k55lakpceqcza1f5vumhq8ma8vr1694157518jpg__fix_374_244.jpeg)
![Illustrations of Constantinople, [1838], first edition, deluxe issue, contemporary portfolio](https://veryimportantlot.com/assets/image/picture_3108867/b9192/m3vzmgv28tglz3nsnnwspanj2jjgnulrozx9k55lakpceqcza1f5vumhq8ma8vr1694157518jpg__fix_374_244.jpeg)
John Frederick Lewis was an English Orientalist painter. He specialized in Oriental and Mediterranean scenes in detailed watercolour or oils, very often repeating the same composition in a version in each medium. He lived for several years in a traditional mansion in Cairo, and after his return to England in 1851 he specialized in highly detailed works showing both realistic genre scenes of Middle Eastern life and more idealized scenes in upper-class Egyptian interiors with little apparent Western influence.
Nicolas Sanson the Elder (Nicolas Sanson d’Abbeville) was a French cartographer who served under two kings in matters of geography. He has been called the "father of French cartography." He gave lessons in geography both to Louis XIII and to Louis XIV. Active from 1627, Sanson issued his first map of importance, the "Postes de France". After publishing several general atlases himself he became the associate of Pierre Mariette, a publisher of prints. He died in Paris on 7 July 1667. Two younger sons succeeded him as geographers to the king. Sanson's maps were used as a model by his son, Guillaume, and, at least initially, by Duval, his nephew, in his 1664 folio map and 1660 atlas minor map. In 1692 Hubert Jaillot collected Sanson's maps in an Atlas nouveau.
Eleazar Albin was a British naturalist and author of illustrated books on birds and insects.
Albin wrote and illustrated a number of books, including A Natural History of English Insects (1720), A Natural History of Birds (1731-38), and A Natural History of Spiders and Other Curious Insects (1736). His work was based on careful observation and artistic talent. Eleazar Albin has been called one of the "great illustrators of entomological books of the 18th century".
Some of the illustrations in these books are by Albin's daughter Elisabeth. Eleazar Albin himself proudly wrote of his drawings that they were all painted from life, with all the accuracy of a sketch, unlike the sketches of other scientists, who did them either from memory or from stories.
