Pauling, The Nature of the Chemical Bond, 1939 (first edition)

The Nature of the Chemical Bond and the Structure of Molecules and Crystals. An Introduction to Modern Structural Chemistry. By Linus Pauling, Professor of Chemistry in the California Institute of Technology. Ithaca, New York. Cornell University Press. London: Humphrey Milford. Oxford University Press. 1939. The George Fisher Baker Non-Resident Lectureship in Chemistry at Cornell University. 
 
Blue hardcover with gold text on spine. Brown dustjacket with black text. Numerous black and white figures throughout text. Jacket fayed and stained (now in a protective mylar). Boards clean and bright through corners bumped and faded. Mild shelf wear. Book cocked. Mild damp stain at bottom corner of last several leaves, not involving text or figures. A few small blemishes of page edges along bottom and fore edges of text block. Otherwise, bright and tight throughout. 
 
xiv, 429 (1). 
 
G-M 6914: “This book set forth in detail Pauling's valence-bond theory based on the quantum-mechanical concept of resonance between two energy states, which led to his highly innovative idea that the hybridization of orbitals (electron waves) between atoms is what makes molecular structure possible. Pauling’s work ‘taught a couple of generations of chemists that the sizes and electrical charges of atoms determine exactly [emphasis mine] their arrangement in molecules’ (Judson, The Eighth Day of Creation, p. 57).”