[ASTRONOMIE XVIIIe]. Pigmalion or the animated statue? Follo - Lot 26

[ASTRONOMIE XVIIIe]. Pigmalion or the animated statue? Followed by : Lettre sur la Comète and Almanach Nocturne. A one-volume set of two rare astronomical treatises and an eighteenth-century almanac. Small in-12, brown speckled calf, engine-turned ribbed spine, gilt fleurons to entrenerfs, gilt title on burgundy leather, cold framing to boards, gold fillet to edges, red speckled edges. Contemporary binding. VIII and 80 pp., 89 pp. and 124 pp. with title finials and a few headbands. Minor rubbing, discreet addition of leather to headpieces and corners, corners a little bent. Very rare spotting. Authors' names annotated in pen on titles. Reunion in one volume of the following three titles: - BOUREAU DESLANDES André-François]. Pigmalion ou la statue animée, London, Samuel Harding, 1741 (VIII and 80 pp.) First edition of this very rare book, condemned to fire on March 14, 1742 by the Parliament of Dijon because of its libertine character. In it, the author develops, before Diderot and La Mettrie, a materialist conception of man to which recent studies attribute a significant place among the materialist literature of his time. - MAUPERTUIS]. Lettre sur la comète, s.l.n.n., 1742 (89 pp.). First edition of this very rare treatise on astronomy by Maupertuis (1698-1759), written in the form of a letter to a lady. It was published on the occasion of the passage of the comet observed at the Paris observatory on March 2, 1742, which caused a great stir among the Parisian population. - NEUFVILLE DE BRUNAUBOIS-MONTADOR, Jean-Florent-Joseph de]. Almanach nocturne à l'usage du grand monde à l'instar de l'almanach de Liège pour l'année M. DCCXLI, enrichi de seize centuries [...], de prédictions nouvelles [...]. Nuitz, chez Sérotin Luna, 1741 (124 pp.) Pleasant contemporary copy of this rare 18th-century astronomical compilation.