FLEMING, J. A. An Elementary Manual of Radiotelegraphy and Radiotelephony for Students and Operators. London, Longmans, 1908.
8vo. Original pebble-grained cloth, spine lettered in gilt; pp. [2, adertisements for other works by the author], xiv, 340, illustrated after drawings and a few photographs; cloth marked, front fly-leaf sympathetically replaced, ownership inscription inside front cover removed, a few minor spots initially; a good copy of an elusive work.
First edition of probaly the first such manual to be published in Britain. Fleming (1849-1945) had studied under Maxwell at the Cavendish Laboratory in Cambridge in the late 1870s. 'Becoming scientific adviser to the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company in 1899, Fleming assisted in designing and operating equipment for Marconi's plans for cross-channel transmission. At the BAAS meeting in Dover that summer, wireless signals from France were publicly heard for the first time in Britain at Fleming's celebrated lecture on the centenary of the electric current. Fleming was also closely involved in preparation for the company's transatlantic transmission in 1901, although he later felt slighted by Marconi's restrained acknowledgement of his limited contributions' (ODNB). He is best known for inventing the two-electrode vacuum tube rectifier, known as the Fleming Valve, which is considered the beginning of modern electronics, and his invention was used in radio receivers and radars for decades after, until the development of solid state electronics. This manual remained in print in updated versions up to the end of the First World War.
#2121266