A Plurality of Worlds.

First Nonesuch Press edition of de Fontenelle's A Plurality of Worlds

A Plurality of Worlds.

DE FONTENELLE, Bernard.

Item Number: 96187

London: The Nonesuch Press, 1929.

First Nonesuch press edition of de Fontenelle’s A Plurality of Worlds. Octavo, bound in full contemporary vellum with gilt titles to the spine, hand-colored gilt headers to each chapter, top edge gilt, others uncut. Translated by John Glanvill. Prologue by David Garnett. In near fine condition. Housed in a custom slipcase.

Founded in 1922 in London by Francis Meynell, his second wife Vera Mendel, and their mutual friend David Garnett, The Nonesuch Press was established in the basement of Garnett's bookshop in Soho. Nonesuch was unusual among private presses in that it used a small hand press to design books and then had them printed by commercial printers. Among the press's best-known editions were the collected works of William Congreve and William Wycherley and translations of Cervantes and Dante. Originally published in 1686, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle's Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds is considered to be one of the first major works of the Age of Enlightenment, offering an explanation for the heliocentric model of the Universe, suggested by Nicolaus Copernicus in 1543.

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