4 articles on the rival telephones of Elisha Gray and Alexander Graham Bell

Paris, 1877. [Telephone.] (1) Le telegraphe parlant. In La Nature: Revue des sciences 5, no. 198 (17 March 1877): 251; no. 201 (7 April 1877): 289-91; and 203 (21 April 1877): 328-330. (2) Le telephone de M. Gray. In ibid., no. 212 (23 June 1877): 59-62. Together 4 whole numbers, 8vo. Wood-engraved illustrations. 301 x 205 mm. Original blue printed wrappers, tear in back wrapper of no. 203, fore-edges a bit frayed. Fine set. First Editions. Early illustrated French reports on the rival telephones of Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray. Bell developed his first successful electrical sound-transmission apparatus in 1875 and published his first announcement of it in 1876. Meanwhile Gray, the inventor of a system of "electro-harmonic telegraphy" for transmitting musical tones over a single wire, was considering the possibility of a device that could transmit speech by wire. The two inventors filed applications at the U.S. Patent office on the same day (Feb. 14, 1876), with Bell's application preceding Gray's by only a few hours. Gray's and Bell's patents were later the subject of a bitter infringement battle, which ended with the court's determination that the Bell telephone patents were valid.