Author's dedication copy including a signed letter by him and a manuscript by Ballanche

AMPERE, Andre-Marie.

[Authors dedication copy]. Essai sur la philosophie des sciences, ou exposition analytique d'une classification naturelle de toutes les connaissances humaines. Two volumes.

Paris: Bachelier, 1834.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #002615

1834-1843. 8vo (205 x 125 mm). Vol. I: lxx, 272 (i.e. 274) pp., including p. 150bis./150ter inserted after p.150 and two folding tables, without 8 pp. publisher's adverts. Vol. II: x, xcvi, 180 pp. and two tables on one folding sheet as issued. Contemporary half calfs over marbled boards, spines lettered and decorated in gilt (disparate bindings, little rubbing to boards and extremities), marbled endpapers in first vol. Pages partially untrimmed and unopened. Paper shows light foxing (stronger to title-pages, tables and final leaves), otherweise crisp, bright and unstained. Closed tear at head of half-title affecting dedication (but without loss) and torn paper at blank lower gutter of half-title. First volume, half-title page, with dedication by the André-Marie Ampère to his friend Dupré** and with a signed double-page manuscript with information about the author in neat hand by Ballanche***, dated 26 July 1836, inserted between half-title and title-page. Second volume with two inserted ALS, the first by Jean-Jacques Ampère* to M. Dupré, dated 3 February 1842 (two pages on one sheet, slightly trimmed at fore-edge), and the second by André-Marie Ampère also directed to Dupré and dated 24 March 1824 (4 pages on two folding sheets, the 2nd sheet with two holes with loss of text).

FIRST EDITIONS, including the augmented second part issued by Andre Ampère's son Jean-Jacques in 1843. A Curious work, unfortunately a little complicated and obscured by the use of many unusual scientific terms: orychtotechnie, cerdoristique, phytographie (...). A remarkable fruit of an apparently materialistic philosophy, not very concordant with the general idea of the great electrician Ampere. (Caillet).
*Ampère, Jean-Jacques (1800-1864) was a French philologist and man of letters. Born in Lyon, he was the only son of the physicist André-Marie Ampère. Jean-Jacques' mother died while he was an infant. He taught at the Sorbonne, and became professor of the history of French literature at the Collège de France and in 1848 he was elected member of the Académie française.
**Dupré, Pierre(?) was prefect of the city of Provins and a close friend of André-Marie Ampère. >br>***Ballanche, Pierre-Simon (1776-1847) was a French writer and counterrevolutionary philosopher, who elaborated a theology of progress that possessed considerable influence in French literary circles in the beginning of the nineteenth century. He was the ninth member elected to occupy seat 4 of the Académie française in 1842. Jean-Jacques Ampère published a biography about Ballanche in 1849.
"Trait curieux ouvrage, malheureusement un peu compliqué et obscurci par l'emploi de quantité de termes scientifiques inusités: orychtotechnie, cerdoristique, phytographie (...). Fruit remarquable d'une philosophie apparemment matérialiste, concordant peu avec l'idée qu'on se fait en général du grand électricien Ampère" (Caillet). Tome I portant un envoi autographe Donné par l'auteur à son ami Dupré avec, relié, un double feuillet manuscrit, signé Ballanche, écrivain et philosophe, ami de André-Marie Ampère, avec des renseignements sur l'auteur. Tome II contenant deux lettres autographes signées, une de André-Marie Ampère et l'autre de son fils, toutes deux adressées à Monsieur Dupré, sous-préfet à Provins.

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