John Lawson's "A New Voyage to Carolina": notes on the publication history of the London (1709) edition.

John Lawson's "A New Voyage to Carolina," an important source document for American colonial natural history, was first printed in 1709 in "A New Collection of Voyages and Travels," a two-volume set that also contained travel books translated by John Stevens. Lawson's publishers were leaders in the book trade of early eighteenth century London, and the "New Voyage" is typical of the resurgent popular interest in foreign travel narratives and exotic flora and fauna that began in the late 1600s. The "New Collection" was among the earliest examples of books published in serial instalments or fascicles, a marketing strategy adopted by London booksellers to broaden the audience and increase sales. Analysis of London issues of the "New Voyage" indicates that the 1709, 1711, 1714, and 1718 versions are simply bindings of the original, unsold sheets from the 1709 "New Collection" edition, differing only by new title-pages, front matter, and random stop-press corrections of type-set errors. Lawson's "New Voyage" illustrates important aspects of the British book trade during the hand press period of the early eighteenth century.

Conscientious workmen or booksellers' hacks? The professional identities of science writers in the mid-nineteenth century.

Existing scholarship on the debates over expertise in mid-nineteenth-century Britain has demonstrated the importance of popular writings on the sciences to definitions of scientific authority. Yet while men of science might position themselves in opposition to the stereotype of the merely popular writer, the self-identity of the popular writer remained ambiguous. This essay examines the careers of William Charles Linnaeus Martin (1798-1864) and Thomas Milner (1808-ca. 1883) and places them in the context of others who made their living by writing works on the sciences for the general reader. Martin wrote on zoology and Milner moved between astronomy, geology, and geography. The essay unravels the close but ambivalent relationship between the professions of authorship and of science and highlights writing as another aspect of scientific practice. Both writers were moderately financially successful, but Martin's sense of failure and Milner's satisfaction reflect their contrasting images of their professional identity.

Publishing the works of Nicholas Culpeper, astrological herbalist and translator of Latin medical works in seventeenth-century London.

This investigation attempts primarily to untangle the complex publishing history of the works of Nicholas Culpeper (1616-54), astrological herbalist and translator of Latin medical works. It therefore identifies those works published in seventeenth-century London: the study indicates that London stationers capitalized on the reputation of Nicholas Culpeper to build the widest possible market for his original astrological/herbal medical works and his translations from continental authors.

[Not Available]. / Joseph Schmid. Handwerkschirurg und Schriftsteller in Augsburg im 17. Jahrhundert.

This essay focuses on the Augsburger barber-surgeon Joseph Schmid (1601/1606(?)-1667), a typical representative of his guild in regard to his apprenticeship and profession. But his surgical publications - written for a wide public as well as for future barber-surgeons - set him apart from the mass of barber-surgeons. His publications became well-known in the 17th and early 18th century and they belonged in "a good German surgical library". In his book entitled "Speculum Chirurgicum", published in 1656, he gave an insight into his patients and profession.

[Arabic manuscripts of medicine in the antique market: ten years of sales at a London auction house]. / Les manuscrits Arabes de médecine sur le marché actuel des antiquités: dix ans de vente auprès d'une maison Londonienne.

In the Arabic classic medicine a great number of manuscripts survives, partly preserved in Libraries all around the world, and partly sold by Auction Societies, like Christie's and its Department of Islamic Art in London. The author lists here some important manuscript which has been on sale in recent times.