Bell, Alexander Graham. The Photophone: 3 articles from the journal Nature, 1880.
London: 1880-1881. Nature: Nov 4 & 18, 1880; February 10, 1881 Original printed wrappers. Fine condition.
We offer the following three issues of Nature covering the initial announcenments of Bell's future-provoking invention of the PHOTOPHONE: (1) Bell's Photophone, pp 15-19, with illustrations of the apparatus, running approximately 3000 words. (2) Shelford Bidwell, "Bell's Photophone", in 18 November 1880, pp 58-9, approximately 1750 words. (3) "Photophone Experiments", in 10 February 1881, page 354, approximately 400 words, two illustrations. These are among the earliest articles on Bell's fantastic invention utilizing his discovery of the photoacoustic effect--basically, transmitting wireless telephone conversations, a feat that would not be utilized until the last two decades of the 10th century. /// We offer the three issues in their original wrappers, cleanly removed from a larger bound volume with only trace elements of the removal visible at their spines. Nice copies. $300
Bell believed that the photophone--developed most fully in his Volta Street lab, which was just three blocks away from where my store stood for nine years--as a machine that transmitted speech on light rays, was by far his most important invention.