CURIE (MARIE)
Thèses présentées à la Faculté des Sciences de Paris pour obtenir le grade de docteur des sciences physiques.. 1re thèse. Recherches sur les substances radioactives. 2e thèse. Propositions données par la Faculté, FIRST EDITION, INSCRIBED 'A SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY/ HOMAGE DE L'AUTEUR/ M. CURIE' on the front free endpaper, one photographic illustration and several diagrams in the text, one side-note and 3 passages marked in pencil in margin, publisher's printed wrappers, lacks front wrapper and most of spine, stitching coming loose [Dibner 164; Grolier Science 19; Norman 543; PMM 394; Waller 11319], 8vo, Paris, Gauthier-Villars, 1903
Footnotes:
NEWLY DISCOVERED PRESENTATION COPY OF MARIE CURIE'S MOST IMPORTANT PUBLICATION, INSCRIBED TO SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY, WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR CHEMISTRY IN 1904.

Marie Curie's doctoral thesis contains a critical analysis of her hugely productive researches, undertaken with her husband, into the phenomenon of radioactivity during the years 1897 to 1903. During this period Curie had 'made the first measurement of radioactive radiation, demonstrated the radioactive properties of thorium, discovered polonium and radium, described the atomic nature of radioactivity, prepared pure radium chloride, determined the atomic weight of radium, observed induced radioactivity... and developed the chemical aspects of radioactivity' (Norman). Six months after the presentation of her thesis, Curie won the Nobel Prize for physics, awarded jointly with her husband Pierre Curie and Henri Becquerel for their discovery of radioactivity. She was the first woman to win the Prize, and on being awarded the the Nobel Prize for chemistry in 1911 she became the first person to be awarded a Nobel twice.

Provenance: Sir William Ramsay (1852-1916), Scottish physical chemist, presentation inscription to him from Marie Curie. In 1904 Ramsay became the first British recipient of the Nobel prize for chemistry, given 'in recognition of his services in the discovery of the inert gaseous elements in air, and his determination of their place in the periodic system' (Nobel Prize website); Sir Harold Brewer Hartley (1878-1972), physical chemist. In 1901 Hartley was appointed tutorial fellow at Balliol College, Oxford and, following a distinguished career in World War I as chemical adviser to the Third Army, he was appointed controller of the chemical warfare department at the Ministry of Munitions in 1919 (see ODNB entry for his later achievements, including the publication in 1971 of his Studies in the History of Chemistry); thence by descent to the present owner.
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