Olympia-2015

‘FROM LONDON TO PARIS AND BACK AGAIN’: A NINETEENTH-CENTURY AERIALEUROSTAR40. EUROPEAN AERONAUTICAL SOCIETY. A collection of three broadsidesadvertising the Aeronautical Society’s ‘First Aerial Ship, The Eagle’, comprising:(i) ‘European Aeronautical Society. First Aerial Ship, The Eagle’. [London] Blatch [forthe European Aeronautical Society], [1835]. Broadsheet (197 x 168mm); woodengravedimage of the Eagle, set in different types; traces of earlier mounting onverso, skilful repairs to margins; (ii) ‘European Aeronautical Society. First AerialShip, The Eagle’. [London] Robinett, [1835]. Broadsheet (196 x 115mm); set indifferent types; (iii) ‘European Aeronautical Society. First Aerial Ship, The Eagle’.[London] Mullin, [1835]. Broadsheet (202 x 168mm); set in different types; traces ofearlier mounting on verso, short tears in the margins. The 3 broadsheets laterinlaid to size in uniform quarto sheets; generally very good, clean copies.£1000 + VAT in EURare survivals of advertisements for an aerial enterprise that filled the streetsof London with excitement in the summer of 1835, and formed an importantchapter of the history of air travel. This series of three broadsheets not onlydocuments the intersection of science, natural history and entrepreneurship inearly 19th-century Europe, but also chronicles a series of events that turned thepublic reaction to the aerial ship Eagle from excitement to scornful dismissal,media reports from sceptical to derogatory, and the inventor-scientist’s project froma mission towards the future of intercontinental air travel to bankruptcy.