Television

London: Pitman, 1926. First edition. First edition of the first book on television. Original red cloth, gilt on the front cover. This now uncommon book is more frequently found in printed wrappers, priced 2/- for popular distribution, bound copies cost 2/6, and probably only a very few were made, for libraries. The bound issue contains a double flyleaf at the front, and a single flyleaf at the back, both of (coated) text paper, while the wrappered issue has no flyleaves nor endpapers. January 1927 ownership inscription. Slight rubbing to extremities; very good condition. 62 pp.; 12 illustrations, including a frontispiece portrait of inventor John Logie Baird and a print of the first photograph ever taken by (i.e. transmitted by) television. "On January 23, 1926, Baird gave a demonstration of his television apparatus to some 40 members of the Royal Institution at his laboratory in Frith Street, Soho. This was the first public demonstration of true television ever witnessed. The images of human faces, not as outlines or silhouettes but complete with tonal gradations of light and shade and detail were transmitted between two rooms," A. Abramson, The History of Television, 1880 to 1941 (1987), p. 84.