£200
FIRST EDITION, 8vo, pp. [iii]-ix, [i], 182 + frontispiece and 2 plates. Numerous illustrations included within pagination. Original burgundy cloth, boards blocked in blind, spine lettered direct in gilt. Binding dampmarked, spine gilding rubbed, endpapers sometime renewed. Modern bookplate to pastedown, clipping from bookseller’s catalogue tipped in to flyleaf, folded a4 printout on Reis’ invention loosely inserted.
The first edition of this biography of German scientist Johann Philipp Reis (1834-1874), inventor of a crude telephonic device. Although it was able to transmit sounds by electrical impulses in a wire, intelligible speech was beyond its capabilities. The battle for the title of 'inventor of the telephone' is a crowded field with many claimants, and experimenters both before and after Reis, although he is credited with inventing the word 'telephon', which was later anglicised as telephone. Library Hub records 10 copies.
