Francis Bacon, The Naturall and Experimentall History of Winds de First Edition in English of Bacon's Fragmentary Natural History

12mo in contemporary leather, 3.5 x 6 inches; frontispiece, xii, 384, [30]; worn, rear board scorched with damage to last two leaves of text; binding loose. A well used non-institutional copy that has not been messed with.

This is the first edition in English of the only parts ever published of Bacon's projected natural history -- his more or less complete natural history of the winds and fragmentary works on the history of life and death and the history of density and rarity. As described in the Dictionary of National Biography, "The section of the Instauratio magna that Bacon most urgently tried to accomplish was the natural histories... In November 1622 he published a volume entitled Historia naturalis et experimentalis ad condendam philosophiam; sive phaenomena universi. It contained the first installment of his natural history project—a natural history of the winds, Historia ventorum—and a plan for five others to be published on a monthly basis. In January 1623 the second part of the project, Historia vitae et mortis (History of life and death) appeared. A third natural history—Historia densi et rari—was well under way but other projects apparently intervened. Although the piece survives in two different versions Bacon never finished it."