Mathematics, Analysis, Algebra
[1890]. Important autograph manuscript by “the greatest woman mathematician prior to the twentieth century” (DSB) and the first woman in Europe to obtain a doctorate in mathematics. This paper complements and completes her most famous work, ‘Sur le problème de la rotation d’un corps solide autour d’un point fixe’ (Acta... More
Item #4276
Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1874. First edition, rare, of the doctoral thesis of “the greatest woman mathematician prior to the twentieth century” (DSB) and the first woman in Europe to obtain a doctorate in mathematics. The thesis contains what is now called the ‘Cauchy-Kowalevsky’ theorem on the existence of solutions of... More
Item #4203
Paris: L’imprimerie Royale / Jean Boudot, 1696/1700. A fine sammelband comprising the first editions of the first books on the differential and integral calculus, respectively. “It was through his wide network of acquaintances in various European countries that Leibniz put into effect all his strategies for the spread of his... More
Item #2848
First edition. Paris: Duprat, 1802. A fine copy of this influential text, which according to Babbage was "so perfect that any comment was unnecassary". "In discussing with a friend the formation of a section of the British and Foreign Bible Society, a society which had the distribution of Bibles as... More
Item #2252
Paris; Paris: Veuve Desaint; de l’Imprimerie de la République, 1788; An V [1797]. An exceptional volume, in a fine contemporary binding, containing the first edition of Lagrange’s masterpiece, the Méchanique, “one of the outstanding landmarks in the history of both mathematics and mechanics” (Sarton, p. 470) and “perhaps the most... More
Item #4300
LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, Jacques, BO[U]VELLES, Charles de, & CLICHTOVE, Josse.
Paris: H. Estienne & W. Hopyl, 27 June 1503. First edition of this very rare collection of works, in an attractive Roger Payne binding. The individual works are all first editions with the exception of Lefèvre’s Epitome of Boethius’ De arithmetica (first, 1496) and an unattributed Opusculum de p[r]axi numerorum... More
Item #3866
Leipzig: Christopher Günther for J. Gross & J. F. Gleditsch, 1684. First edition of Leibniz’s invention of the differential calculus. “His epoch-making papers give rules of calculation without proof for rates of variation of functions and for drawing tangents to curves … With the calculus a new era began in... More
Item #4598
London: Printed by S[arah]. G[riffin]. and B[ennet]. G[riffin]. for Benjamin Tooke and Thomas Sawbridge, [1669]. First edition, first issue, extremely rare, of the first of Leybourn’s books on the subject. This issue has ‘dialling:’ in line 2 of the title and lacks imprint date; the more common (but still rare)... More
Item #4610
Kazan: Universitetskai a tip. 1835. First edition, incredibly rare offprint, of this important book-length memoir on the foundations of calculus and real analysis by the first inventor of non-euclidean geometry. “As early as 1835, Lobachevsky showed in a memoir [the offered work] the necessity of distinguishing between continuity and differentiability”... More
Item #3652
Lyons: Jacob Marechal for Simon Vincent, 5 May 1517. Third edition, the first edited by the Lullist Bernard de Lavinheta (d. ca. 1530), of the Ars Magna, his greatest work, now recognised as perhaps the first work in computer science. “Lull invented an ‘art of finding truth’ which inspired Leibniz's... More
Item #4363
London: Printed for the author’s children and sold by A. Millar, et al. 1748. First edition, large-paper copy, of Maclaurin’s statement of Newtonian theory, one of the three “most outstanding popular introductions to Newtonian science of the eighteenth century” (I. B. Cohen, Franklin and Newton, 1956, p. 209). “Though a.... More
Item #3409
1743. Edinburgh: 5 February. Important autograph letter from the great Scottish mathematician Colin Maclaurin (1698-1746) discussing his most important work, Treatise of Fluxions (1742), “the earliest logical and systematic publication of the Newtonian methods. It stood as a model of rigor until the appearance of Cauchy’s Cours d’analyse in 1821”... More
Item #3411
Edinburgh: Printed by T.W. and T. Ruddimans, 1742. First edition, a very fine large and thick paper copy, of “the earliest logical and systematic publication of the Newtonian methods. It stood as a model of rigor until the appearance of Cauchy’s Cours d’Analyse in 1821” (DSB). The Treatise was written... More
Item #4222
Venice: Franciscum Franciscium Senensem, 1575. First and only edition (see Rara Aritmetica) of the first clear statement of the principle of mathematical induction. “Francesco Maurolico is generally recognized to have been one of the foremost mathematicians of the sixteenth century” (Rosen); Cajori has called him ‘the greatest geometer of the... More
Item #2613
Messina: Pietro Spira, 1558. First edition, ‘excessively rare’ (Sotheran, 1917), of Maurolico’s Latin translations of works on ‘sphaerics’ by four ancient Greek writers, Autolycus, Menelaus, Euclid and Theodosius, those of the first two authors constituting the first printed editions. Maurolico, one of the most original mathematicians of the 16th century... More
Item #2881
Leipzig: F.W. Vogel, 1909. First edition of Minkowski’s famous lecture on his theory of four-dimensional space-time, the first published account of this theory to be illustrated with ‘spacetime diagrams’, which were widely used later by Stephen Hawking, Roger Penrose and others in the development of general relativity. “In ‘Space and... More
Item #4418
Edinburgh; Padua: Andrew Hart; Giacomo Cadorino, 1619; [1667]. First edition, extremely rare, of this complement to Napier’s epoch-making Mirifici logorithmorum canonis descriptio (1614) – while the Descriptio gave the first ever table of logarithms, it was in the Constructio that Napier explained the method of their construction. It is here... More
Item #4638
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1956. First edition of Nash’s most famous work in pure mathematics, his solution of “a deep philosophical problem concerning geometry”, first posed by Bernhard Riemann, “one of the most important pieces of mathematical analysis in this century” which “has completely changed the perspective on partial differential... More
Item #3536
Cambridge / London: Typis Academicus / Benjamin Tooke, 1707. First edition of Newton’s treatise on algebra, or ‘universal arithmetic,’ his “most often read and republished mathematical work” (Whiteside). “Included are ‘Newton’s identities’ providing expressions for the sums of the ith powers of the roots of any polynomial equation, for any... More
Item #4064
Cambridge; London: Typis Academicus; Benjamin Tooke, 1707. First edition of Newton’s treatise on algebra, or ‘universal arithmetic,’ his “most often read and republished mathematical work” (Whiteside). “Included are ‘Newton’s identities’ providing expressions for the sums of the ith powers of the roots of any polynomial equation, for any integer i.... More
Item #4639
First edition. Antwerp: heirs of Arnold Birckman, 1567. Exceptionally fine copy, bound in citron morocco for Jacques-Auguste de Thou (1553-1617), of this rare and celebrated treatise on algebra. “Considered the greatest of Portuguese mathematicians, Nuñez reveals in his discoveries, theories, and publications that he was a first-rate geographer, physicist, cosmologist... More
Item #3645
Paris: Guillaume Desprez, 1659. First edition, extremely rare (one of about 120 copies printed), of one of Pascal’s most brilliant works. “Édition originale, extrêmement rare, de la dernière œuvre de Pascal, l’une des plus éclatantes de son génie” (Lucien Scheler in Tchemerzine, V, pp. 54-55). “Pascal devoted himself during 1658... More
Item #4403
First edition. Cologne [Paris]: Pierre de la Vallée, [1656-]1657. A beautiful copy of Pascal’s 18 Provincial letters, bound in fine red morocco in 1865 by Chambolle-Duru, from the collection of Benzon (his sales catalogue no. 42, 1875) with two further rare works relating to Pascal. Provenance: inscription to title ‘Ex... More
Item #3426
Turin: Bocca Brothers, 1889. First edition, and a fine copy in the original printed wrappers, of Peano’s most important work, which contains the first statement of the famous ‘Peano axioms’ for the natural numbers and which remains of seminal importance to mathematics and mathematical logic. “Peano’s most important contribution to... More
Item #4539
Turin: Bocca Brothers, 1888. First edition, rare. “Calcolo Geometrico, G. Peano’s first publication in mathematical logic, is a model of expository writing, with a significant impact on 20th century mathematics” (Kannenberg). It may be regarded (in part) as a preliminary version of his more famous work Arithmetices Principia, published in... More
Item #4029
![Analyse des infiniment petits, pour l’intelligence des lignes courbes. Paris: L’imprimerie Royale, 1696. [Bound with :] CARRÉ, Louis. Methode pour la mesure des surfaces, la dimension des solides, leurs centres de pesanteur, de percussion et d'oscillation, par l'application du calcul intégral. Guillaume François Antoine L'HÔSPITAL, Marquis de.](/pictures/thumb/2848.jpg?v=1434448483)
![Méchanique analitique. [Bound with:] Théorie des fonctions analytiques. Joseph Louis de LAGRANGE.](/pictures/thumb/4300.jpg?v=1503123359)
![Josse. Epitome compendiosaq[ue] introductio in libros arithmeticos divi Severini Boetii [Lefevre], adiecto familiari commentario dilucidata [Clichtove]. Introductio annotationibus explanata, sex libris distincta. Liber de quadratura circuli, liber de cubicatione spherae; perspectivae introductio [Bovelles]. Praxis numerandi certis quibusdam regulis constricta [Clichtove]. Insuper Astronomicon [Lefèvre]. Jacques LEFÈVRE D’ÉTAPLES, Charles de, B. VELLES, Josse CLICHTOVE, U.](/pictures/thumb/3866.jpg?v=1454131574)
![Sposob uviersit'sia v izchezanii bezkonechnykh strok i priblizhat'sia k znacheniiu funktsii ot ves'ma bol'shikh chisel [Cyrillic] [A method for ascertaining the convergence of infinite series and for obtaining approximate values of functions of a large number of variables]. Nikolai Ivanovich LOBACHEVSKY.](/pictures/thumb/3652.jpg?v=1503122431)
![Ars magna generalis et ultima quaruncunque artium et scientiarum assecutrix et clauigera et ad eas aditum faciliorem praebens antehac nusquam arti impressorie emunctius commendata. [Edited by Bernard de la Vinheta.]. Ramon LULL, or LULLUS or LLULL.](/pictures/thumb/4363.jpg?v=1508753537)
![Opuscula mathematica; nunc primum in lucem aedita, cum rerum omnium notatu dignarum. Indice locupletissimo. Pagell huic proxime contigua, eorum catalogus est. [Volume 2:] Arithmeticorum libri duo, nunc primum in lucem editi. Cum rerum omnium notabilium. Indice copiossisimo. Francesco MAUROLICO.](/pictures/thumb/2613.jpg?v=1434448441)
![Mirifici logarithmorum canonis constructio; et eorum ad naturales ipsorum numeros habitudines; una cum appendice, de aliâ eâque præstantiore logarithmorum specie contenda. Quibus accessere propositiones ad triangula sphærica faciliore calculo resolvenda: Unà cum annotationibus aliquot doctissimi D. Henrici Briggii, in eas & memoratam appendicem. Edinburgh: Andrew Hart, 1619. [Bound with:] GREGORY, James. Vera circuli et hyperbolae quadratura, in propria sua proportionis specie, inventa, & demonstrata. Padua: Giacomo Cadorino, [1667]. John NAPIER.](/pictures/thumb/4638.jpg?v=1541428897)
![Lettres de A[mos] Dettonville contenant Quelques-unes de ses Inventions de Géométrie. Sçavoir – La Résolution de tous les Problèmes touchant la Roulette qu’il avoit proposez publiquement au mois de Juin 1658. L’Égalité entre les Lignes courbes de toutes sortes de Roulettes, & des Lignes Eliptiques. L’Égalité entre les Lignes Spirale, & Parabolique, demonstrée à la manière des Anciens. La Dimension d’un Solide formé par le moyen d’une Spirale autour d’un Cone. La Dimension & le Centre de gravité des Triangles Cylindriques. La Dimension et le Centre de gravité de l’Escalier. Un Traitté des Trilignes & de leurs Onglets. Un Traitté des Sinus, et des Arcs de Cercle, Un Traitté des Solides Circulaires. Blaise PASCAL.](/pictures/thumb/4403.jpg?v=1511689615)
