L'Art de convertir le fer forgé en acier

In-4 of (10) ff., 566 pp., (1) f. and 17 folding plates.

Red morocco, triple gilt fillet framing the boards, gilt stamped coat of arms in the center, spine with raised bands richly decorated, the crowned N monogram repeated five times between the bands, decorated edges, inner gilt roll, gilt edges over marbling.

Period binding with gilt coat of arms and crowned monogram.

290 x 215 mm.

Réaumur, René Antoine Ferchault de. The art of converting wrought iron into steel, and the art of softening cast iron, or making cast iron works as finished as those made of wrought iron.

Paris, Michel Brunet, 1722.

Original edition of Réaumur’s major work.

Hoover, 677; Norman, 1803; Wolf, II, p.530; Bibliotheca Mechanica, p. 274; Poggendorff, II, 580-581; Zeitlinger-Sotheran, no. 3917.

It is illustrated with 17 plates engraved by Simonneau.

First edition of the first comprehensive book devoted to the manufacture of iron and steel; it “laid the foundations of the steel industry in France” (Partington, III, p. 64).

“The first reliable treatise on ferrous metal metallurgy” (Norman).

Réaumur “revealed for the first time hitherto secret details of the process, and also came very close to the correct explanation of the nature of steel, that it is iron combined with a small quantity of carbon” (Hoover).

René Ferchault de Réaumur (1683-1757), French physicist and naturalist, founder of metallography and one of the first entomologists, was admitted to the Academy of Sciences at the age of 25. He studied metals and their physical properties. His research on ferrous alloys was particularly important: converting cast iron into steel by adding iron, cementation and quenching of steel. He published the results of his work in 1722 in The Art of Converting Wrought Iron into Steel and the Art of Softening Cast Iron. He also introduced the use of the microscope in the study of the structure of metals, thus founding metallography. He was entrusted with overseeing the Description des arts et métiers.

His work led to the introduction of steel manufacturing in France, a metal that had previously been imported.

Through his discoveries, Réaumur is undoubtedly the father of scientific metallurgy.

Valuable presentation copy on large paper (height: 290 mm) bound in contemporary red morocco with the arms and crowned cipher of Adrien-Maurice, Duke of Noailles.

He joined the musketeers at the age of fourteen, in 1692; became a colonel in 1694, and married Françoise-Charlotte-Amable d’Aubigné, niece of Madame de Maintenon. He became a field marshal in 1704 and took the title of Duke of Noailles. During the Regency, he presided over the council of finances, then the council of commerce; he was knighted into the king’s orders and the Order of the Golden Fleece. He was made Marshal of France in 1734; appointed Minister of State in 1743, he directed foreign affairs from April to October 1744.

He was one of the most remarkable men of his century, who combined great military talents with much expertise in matters of government.