Description des expériences de la machine aérostatique de MM. de Montgolfier, et de celles auxquelles cette découverte a donné lieu… - WITH INTRIGUING PROVENANCE

Paris: Chez Cuchet. 1783. First, 1st issue. 8vo. 19.5x12.5 cm (7¾x5"). [i-iii] iv-xl, [1] 2-299, [3], 9 engraved plates (plate v as frontispiece).  Contemporary full vellum with five raised bands, pages edged in red. With the ownership signature “Dutillet” to the inside front board in a contemporary hand, raising the intriguing possibility that this copy hails from the family of Évrard Titon du Tillet (1677-1762), great patron of the arts and secretary to Louis XIV, whose family mansion “La Folie Titon” was the sight of the first tethered balloon flight on October 19th, 1783 (Réveillon, de Rozier and de Villette). A later ownership signature “Allonneaud” in pencil, on the blank recto of the frontis engraving.  A few pages slightly irregularly cut, including one partially separating from the gutter, else fine.  References: Dibner, Heralds of Science 179; PMM 229; Norman 769; Sparrow, Milestones of Science 179; Tissandier p.21.

This volume is the rare true first issue of the first edition of the earliest account of the first aerial voyage in history. Etienne and Joseph Montgolfier were pioneers in the field of aerostatics and made history in November 1783 with the first hot air balloon to carry passengers. Only a small number of this volume were issued separately; when volume 2 was published the following year, volume 1 was reissued with a 4-page supplement, describing the voyage of November 20, 1783, and this appears in virtually all copies encountered on the market. 

In June of 1783, the Montgolfier brothers launched a balloon over Annonay. "This feat, however, was surpassed...in September when they successfully launched a balloon carrying a sheep, a cock and a duck, and even more sensationally in November when, after some tethered experiments, Pilatre de Rozier, accompanied by the Marquis d'Arlandes, made the first aerial voyage in history. They ascended from the Chateau de la Muette in the Bois de Boulogne, sustained their flight for five-and-a-half miles across Paris and descended after twenty-five minutes on the outskirts of the city." (PMM). The experiment, which was witnessed by Benjamin Franklin, the Dauphin, amongst many others, marks the real beginning of the history of manned flight. Saint-Fond, a notable French geologist, was their financer and supporter and his chronicle became ‘the first serious treatise on aerostation as a practical possibility’ (PMM), detailing both the event itself and the theoretical and practical science which went into making the flights a success. (23320)

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