"I placed the membrane of the telephone near my mouth and uttered the sentence, 'Do you understand what I say?' Presently an answer was returned through the instrument in my hand. Articulate words proceeded from the clock-spring attached by the membrane, and I heard the sentence: 'Yes; I understand you perfectly'."   --A.G.Bell, Researches in Telephony

Alexander Graham Bell's 
Researches in Telephony (PMM 365)

1877 First edition

"In 1874, while experimenting with a tuned system of telegraphy, and also studying the path of sound waves in the human ear, Bell combined the two investigations and worked out the theory of the telephone. Bell succeeded only after long and discouraging experiment and he produced three telephones before he felt equal to a public demonstration in 1876. The first intelligible sentences exchanged over the telephone were transmitted from one room to another in the same house between Bell and assistant. They were 'Do you understand what I say?' 'Yes; I understand you perfectly.' In the same month, March 1876, Bell took out his first patent which, although frequently and bitterly contested, was consistently upheld by the courts. In April 1877 Bell's system was installed between New York and Boston as the first public telephone service. His name is still commemorated in the nation-wide telephone service of the United States." (Printing and the Mind of Man, 365)

BELL, Alexander Graham. Researches in Telephony, In Proceedings of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Vol. 12. Boston: American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 1877. Octavo, original printed wrappers. Housed in clamshell box.  $10,500

First printing of Bell's historic paper on telephony, a towering scientific and technological achievement and a defining moment of the modern age . Unopened, uncut in original wrappers; slight separation at front lower hinge (1.25"), two minor chips to rear wrapper, otherwise flawless.  A very nearly perfectly preserved copy.