HistoryofScience.com Blog

Tuesday, June 10, 2008

First Phone Book Gets a Lot of Pre-Sale Publicity


Two works in the forthcoming auction of the library of our former client, Richard Green, are getting a lot of pre-sale publicity. The first, a superb copy of Copernicus' De Revolutionibus (1543), is hardly a surprise, as it is one of the greatest and most famous books ever published. The second is more unusual and could not be more different. It is the only surviving copy of the world's first telephone book, published in New Haven, Connecticut in 1878. When this was on the market during the 1970's interest in it was relatively slight as might seem appropriate for a work that is decidely ephemeral. Presumably current interest reflects the growing impact of electronic media--including cell phones-- in our lives.
The auction will be held at Christie's, New York on June 17 .

Labels: , , ,

posted by Jeremy Norman @ 7:19 AM   0 Comments

Saturday, May 3, 2008

Claude Shannon's master's thesis sold

We were excited to sell an original carbon typescript signed of Claude Shannon’s A Symbolic Analysis of Relay and Switching Circuits. This copy of the original thesis, which Shannon submitted to M.I.T. for his Master of Science degree on August 10, 1937, may be the only extant copy other than the file copy at M.I.T. Shannon’s master’s thesis has been frequently called the most important master’s thesis of the twentieth century because of the influence it had on the development of the electronic and computer industries, both of which it pre-dated by at least a decade. The thesis is known primarily from an edited version that appeared in the Transactions of the A.I. E.E. in 1938. Jeremy included that text in his anthology, From Gutenberg to the Internet.

Labels: , ,

posted by Jeremy Norman @ 8:25 AM   0 Comments


back to top