Lot 17
[Thomas BURNET] Telluris Theoria Sacra 1681

Estimate: $700 - $1,000

Have one like this?

About this Lot
Description
[Thomas BURNET] Telluris Theoria Sacra: orbis nostri originem & mutations ? Libri Duo Priores de Diluvio & Paradiso.

Offered for sale by Adam Langlands of 'Shadowrock Rare Books' - for more information please contact him via email at adamlanglands@gmail.com

[Thomas BURNET (d.1715)]. Telluris Theoria Sacra: orbis nostri originem & mutations … Libri Duo Priores de Diluvio & Paradiso. London: typis  R. N[orton]. impensis Gualt. Kettilby, 1681. 2 parts on one volume (as issued), small quarto (8 x 6in; 203 x 153mm). Pp. [i-xvi], 1-138, [139-144]-306, [i-ii advertisement]. Front blank, general title and title to second part. Numerous engraved illustrations, two double-page plates. (Some spotting). Early mottled calf, spine gilt (damage to spine [see images], hinges split but cords holding).

 First edition of the first two parts of Burnet’s Theory of the Earth: admired by Sir Isaac Newton. There are two separate issues dated 1681, though this is not recorded by Wing and no priority has been established. The present work conforms to ESTC R6547 (collating: A4 a4 B-2Q4 2R2), with an initial blank and final advertisement leaf. Some copies previously offered for sale call for an engraved frontispiece, but this is only noted in the collation for ESTC R200980, which has different pagination and is a different setting of the text. These first two parts were reissued in 1689, with the addition of two further parts on the ‘Conflagration’ and ‘Millenium’.

Wing B 5948; Norman 375 ("Burnet felt the need to place the Biblical account of the creation upon an intellectually respectable foundation. Cartesian physics supplied the mechanics of geologic change for Burnet's theory".