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

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

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

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

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” (DSB)..... More
Item #3411

Florence: Giuseppe Cocchini, 1666 (dedication dated 14 July, 1667). First edition, first issue, a magnificent copy bound in contemporary Italian red morocco gilt, probably for presentation, of the only publication of the Accademia del Cimento, the first organisation founded for the sole purpose of making scientific experiments (the more common... More
Item #4707

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

Paris: J. Quilau, 1708. A fine copy, of the first separately published textbook of probability. “In 1708 [Montmort] published his work on Chances, where with the courage of Columbus he revealed a new world to mathematicians” (Todhunter, p. 78). “The Essay (1708) is the first published comprehensive text on probability... More
Item #3894

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 integer i...... More
Item #4639

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 libris Congregationis..... More
Item #3426

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

Paris: Gauthier-Villars, 1879. A fine copy, with the original printed wrappers, of Poincaré's thesis for his doctorate in science from the University of Paris. “Poincaré's doctoral thesis [was] on differential equations (not on methods of solution, but on existence theorems), which led to one of his most celebrated contributions to..... More
Item #2928