Roger Gaskell Rare Books

I stock rare and important books (and a few manuscripts) in a range of scientific, medical, and technical subjects, particularly books published before 1800. The books offered are all first or important early editions, as far as possible in original bindings.
I issue up to three fully annotated catalogues each year which will be sent on request.

Roger Gaskell

My first job, a holiday job, was dusting books in the basement of Galloway and Porter’s in Cambridge. After studying biochemistry at Bristol University, (BSc, 1971) I went to work for Bernard Quaritch Ltd in London, taking over the management of the science and medicine department in 1977 (my first catalogue was Quaritch Catalogue 977). I joined Pickering and Chatto Ltd in 1981, when the firm, under the ownership of William Rees-Mogg, was merged with Dawsons of Pall Mall, one of the leading specialists in science and medicine, on the premises formerly occupied by the famous Roinson firm. While at Pickering’s I set up and managed Pickering and Chatto (Publishers) Ltd., now a successful independent business. I was managing director at Pickerings, as well as running the science and medicine department when I left in 1989 to set up Roger Gaskell Rare books.

Terms and conditions are in accordance with the 'Code of Good Practice' of the Antiquarian Booksellers Association. Shipping and insurance will be charged at cost, and all books are returnable for any reason.

The business is run from my home (please make an appointment before visiting) a seventeenth-century red-brick house in the village of Warboys, 20 miles from Cambridge. The nearest railway station is Huntingdon with a good service to London Kings Cross.

The logo

My logo is taken from the title page of Guidobaldi del Monte (1545-1607) Mechanicorum liber (folio, Pesaro, Hieonymus Concordia, 1577), regarded as the most important contribution to mechanics since Archimedes. The globe and lever device is an illustration of the saying ascribed to Archimedes, ‘Toleret quis si consisteret' - give me a place to stand and I will move the earth. The device was frequently used in later works on mechanics, but I do not know if it has a prior history. In Mathematical magic (1648), John Wilkins gives a version of the device, and explains that ‘[Archimedes] was frequently wont to say, how that he could move, Datum pondus cum data potentia, the greatest conceivable weight with the least conceivable power: and that if he did but know where to stand and fasten his instrument, he could move the world, all this great globe of sea and land’ (pp. 79–80).