?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200
WILKINS, JOHN. Mercury; or, The Secret and Swift Messenger:shewing, how a Man may with Privacy and Speed communicate his Thoughts to a Friend at any Distance.[14] (of [16]), 180 [i. e. 170], [4] pages, including 2 blanks at end; lacks the initial blank. 8vo, 164x113 mm, contemporary calf, worn, rebacked, endpapers renewed, front cover detached; marginal dampstaining through most of volume with occasional faint traces of mold, slight paper corrosion along fore edge of opening leaves, contemporary owner's inscriptions on blanks at end London: I. Norton for John Maynard and Timothy Wilkins, 1641
first edition of the first book in English devoted to cryptography, "not merely a practical guide in the use and decoding of ciphers, but a broadly based discussion of the means of communication, or what today would be called semiotics"--DSB XIV, 365. Wing W2202.
