!5BACON, FRANCIS, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans. Instauratio magna [Novum Organum]. London: (Bonham Norton and) John Bill 1620.

Details
!5BACON, FRANCIS, Baron Verulam, Viscount St. Albans. Instauratio magna [Novum Organum]. London: (Bonham Norton and) John Bill 1620.

Folio, 335 x 218mm. (13 1/8 x 8 9/16in.), original limp vellum, covers each with single gilt fillet outer border enclosing a double gilt fillet central panel with corner ornament, with Bacon's gilt crest of a boar stamped in gilt at center, overlapping fore-edges, flat spine with ten horizontal triple gilt fillets alternating with a small scroll ornament, foot of spine repaired, lacks ties, lacks front free endpaper, edges of leaves slightly darkened; red morocco clamshell case by Sangorski & Sutcliffe (upper cover of case scuffed).

LARGE-PAPER COPY IN A PRESENTATION BINDING

FIRST EDITION, first issue without errata note and with Norton's and Bill's names in the colophon, (collation: 2 4 A-C6 D-Ss4 Tt6 a-e4), printed on large paper with crown watermark, with the blank leaves 1, c4 and e4, small cancel slip changing a preposition pasted on bottom line of T1 recto, engraved title by Simon van der Passe, 10 pictorial woodcut initials (including repeats), woodcut ornaments. Gibson Bacon 103a; Grolier/Horblit 8b; Pforzheimer App.1; PMM 119, STC 1162.

The Pforzheimer catalogue traces eight copies, including the present, on large paper in presentation vellum bindings. In this copy 19 errata have been corrected by a contemporary hand in ink. These correspond substantially to the printed errata in the second issue (STC 1163) and are as follows:
p. 26, line 8 p. 164, line 15
30, line 26 203, line 17
53, line 2 217, line 9
62, line 7 232, line 13
63, line 10 260, line 14
77, line 3 278, line 26
77, line 19 299, line 8
82, lines 7 and 8 313, line 25
100, line 19 323, line 22
133, line 7

"Bacon conceived a massive plan for the reorganization of scientific method and gave purposeful thought to the relation of science to public and social life. His pronouncement 'I have taken all knowledge to be my province' is the motto of his work. The frontispiece to his Magnum opus shows a ship in full sail passing through the Pillars of Hercules from the old to the new world. It symbolizes the vision of its author whose ambitious proposal was: 'a total reconstruction of sciences, arts and all human knowledge...to extend the power and dominion of the human race...over the universe."--Printing and the Mind of Man.

Provenance: Sir Willoughby Jones, long ink inscription dated 1859 on first blank leaf facing title, bookplate -- With Bernard Quaritch Lt+., pencil note at end (1927?) -- With Rosenbach Company, sold to
Frank Brewer Bemis, Jr., bookplate, resold by Rosenbach to -- Arthur A. Houghton, Jr., 1941 (sale, Christie's London, 13 June 1979, lot 22, £32,000, H.P. Kraus); see catalogue Fifty Years (1982), £112.