We are delighted to announce our first collaborative print catalogue, showcasing four centuries of scientific innovation, featuring 36 landmark texts, maps, and artefacts that illuminate the remarkable creativity and ingenuity of modern science.

This catalogue offers a rare opportunity to acquire important items such as Charles Darwin discussing the classification of barnacles in a letter to marine biologist Henry Lee, Marie Tharp’s groundbreaking contributions to Plate Tectonics, James Hutton’s foundational ‘Theory of the Earth’, Srinivasa Ramanujan’s elegant number theory papers, and Andrew Wiles’ celebrated solution to Fermat’s Last Theorem.

If there is a leitmotif to the collection, it is the ‘art of science’: highlights include three masterpieces of nineteenth-century graphic design, namely Byrne’s Euclid, Youmans’ Chemical Atlas, and Quin’s Historical Atlas, alongside which sit Émile Blanchard’s exquisite botanical and entomological illustrations. We are also offering four wonderful geological maps, their beautiful colours revealing the hidden structures of our world, while Hooke’s paper on the micrometer features some ingenious ‘paper engineering’.

Other pivotal scientific documents offered here include Babbage’s original Difference Engine proposal, the earliest discussion of Gregor Mendel’s Laws of Inheritance, Max Born’s classic work on atomic structure annotated by Douglas Hartree, Cantor’s first publication on the ‘Continuum Hypothesis’, and the landmark 1953 Nature issue containing papers by Crick, Watson, Franklin, and Wilkins unveiling the structure of DNA.

Each item in this collection not only represents a milestone in scientific thought but also exemplifies the art and craft of scientific communication. We invite you to explore and acquire these rare and inspiring pieces that have shaped our understanding of the natural world and the universe beyond.

Boris Jardine & Julian Wilson, May 2025