[BOYLE, Robert (1627-1691)]

Lot 179
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementRoyaume-Uni, London
Commissionsee on Website%
ID 1514500
Lot 179 | [BOYLE, Robert (1627-1691)]
Valeur estimée
£ 5 000 – 7 000
[BOYLE, Robert (1627-1691)]
‘An Epistolical Discourse of Philaretus to Empericus, written by a Person of singular Piety, Honour, and Learning, inviting all true lovers of Vertue and Mankind, to a free and generous Communication of their Secrets and Receits in Physick.’ In: Chymical, Medicinal and Chyrirgical Addresses: Made to Samuel Hartlib. London: G. Dawson for Giles Calvert, 1655.
Rare first edition of a collection of tracts on alchemy and medicine, containing Robert Boyle’s first appearance in print: we are unable to trace any copy at auction since 1998.

In ‘Philaretus to Empyricus’, Boyle makes ‘an impassioned plea for the free dissemination of knowledge, especially medical’ on the grounds that ‘those in possession of secrets that might be of general benefit were obliged on both religious and moral grounds freely to divulge them’ (Rankin). Written c.1647-49, it was not re-issued until its discovery as a Boyle publication by Margaret E. Rowbottom in 1950. Boyle's anonymously-written twenty-page essay is among the nine addresses included in this rare anthology, which also includes tracts such as ‘A Conference concerning the Phylosophers Stone’, and the first appearance in print of an essay by Colonial American Alchemist Sir George Starkey (1628-1665), entitled ‘Sir George Ripley's Epistle to King Edward unfolded’. This latter text was evidently of particular interest to Sir Isaac Newton, in whose hand a manuscript version is held by Cambridge University (Keynes MS. 52). ESTC R209495; Fulton Boyle [I]; Norman 297; Rankin, Alisha. (2016) Secrets and Knowledge in Medicine and Science, 1500–1800; Rowbottom, M. E. (1950) ‘The earliest published writing of Robert Boyle’, Annals of Science, 6(4), pp. 376–389. Not in Ferguson or Duveen.

Small octavo (134 x 85mm). Woodcut head- and tailpieces, initials (some page numbers just trimmed, blank corner of K2 part-title chipped, some light spots, stain on *7v). 19th-century burgundy half morocco over marbled paper boards, spine lettered in gilt (lightly rubbed). Provenance: Royal Society of Medicine (ink stamp on title [Royal Medical and Chirurgical Society], shelf-label on upper cover).
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