BACON (François) Lot n° 38

Histoire naturelle. Paris, Antoine de Sommaville & André Soubron, 1631. Fort in-8 of (8) ff, 26 pp., (3) ff, 567 pp. (8 ff., 26 pp., (3 ff., 567 pp.) : soft vellum, remains of laces, title in ink on spine (contemporary binding). First edition of the French translation by Pierre Amboise, sieur de La Magdelaine. It is of great interest since it includes, after Sylva sylvarum, a discourse on the life of the author, the first printed biography of Bacon, but above all the first publication in French of the New Atlantis presented here under the title Atlas nouveau. A posthumous work by Francis Bacon (1561-1626) published in English in 1626, The Natural History contains numerous philosophical and scientific observations: metals, gold, the nature of fire, music, the nature of sounds, medicine, plants and animals, the liquefaction of bodies, putrefaction, the occult power of spirits, etc. A chapter on wine and "the nature of the fire" is included. One chapter concerns wine and "yvrongnery" (pp. 241-253). The New Atlantis, a famous utopia first published in 1627, occupies pages 419-567: "In the novelistic form of a travelogue, the author links the island of Bensalem to the Platonic myth of Atlantis. Bacon is inspired by the City of the Sun and Christianopolis, but he bases his utopia on scientific knowledge, thus inaugurating the genre of science fiction" (BnF, Utopia, n° 78, for the fifth English edition published in 1639). Pleasant copy in contemporary vellum. Some foxing and small stains to the binding. (Versins, Encyclopédie de l'utopie, des voyages extraordinaires et de la science-fiction, pp. 88-89: "Récit d'un voyage à une île du Pacifique Nord.")