Large 8ov. [4], 229, [2]pp. With portrait frontispiece. Original publishers cream card wrappers lettered red and black. All edged untrimmed, top edge unopened. Wrappers a little stained and marked, lightly toned throughout.

Antoine Laurent Lavoisier (1743-1794), aristocratic French scientist, humanitarian, social reformer, and administrator of the Ferme générale. His contributions to the sciences, particularly in chemistry and biology, are fundamental to modern understandings of the disciplines. He named both oxygen and hydrogen, as well as producing the first extensive list of elements, contributing significantly to combustion theory in the process. He also assisted in the construction of the metric system, and founded (and taught at) the Musée des Arts et Métiers. His wife and laboratory assistant, Marie-Anne Paulze Lavoisier, became a renowned chemist in her own right.

Lavoisier was accused of tax fraud at the height of the French Revolution, and was guillotined in 1794. He was pardoned around eighteen months later.