Anquetil - Notice sur les Pistolets Tournants et Roulants, dits Revolvers - 1855

Notice on the turning and rolling pistols, called revolvers, or their past, their present, their future; followed by the general principles on shooting these weapons. By Anquetil.

Paris, Ch. Tanera, Publisher, Library for Military Art, the Sciences and the Arts, Quai des Augustins, 27, 1855.

In-8 (circa 22 × 14 cm bound), pp. 147.\nContemporary binding in half red morocco with marbled paper boards in vegetal motifs, smooth spine with gilded titles and flourishes; printed label with title and bibliographic data applied to the front board (frontispiece on the board).

Woodcut illustrations in the text depicting the main revolver models of the era (Colt, Adams-Deane, Comblain with intermittent revolving action, Mangeot-Comblain with continuous rotation, etc.).\n
One of the very first systematic treatises devoted to the revolver, published a few years after the diffusion of Samuel Colt’s firearms. The work examines:\n • the history and evolution of the “pistolets tournants et roulants”;\n • the main contemporary systems (Colt, Joseph Lang, J. Barnett, Adams-Deane, Comblain, Mangeot-Comblain, Haaken-Plondeur, Loron and others);\n • technical comparisons, comparative tests (including the famous procès-verbal of Woolwich experiments of 1851);\n • general principles on shooting with these weapons (range assessment, knowledge of the weapon, handling).\n
The text, accompanied by detailed mechanical descriptions and figures, constitutes a valuable primary source on the technology and the European debate around the revolver in the mid-nineteenth century.

A work of great interest for the history of firearms and nineteenth-century military technology: it is among the earliest and most complete French treatises on the subject, published at a time when the revolver was establishing itself as an innovative weapon. The original 1854-1855 editions are very rare on the antiquarian market (French edition particularly sought after; there is also a German translation from 1855, also scarce). The presence of technical illustrations and the frontispiece applied to the board further increases its collectible value.

General condition: wear typical of binding. A remarkably rare copy and documentary importance for collectors of arms, military history and 19th-century technical bibliography.