Name: Auction: Du Halde, Jean Baptiste A Description of the Empire of China, and Chinese-Tartary
Brand: Lyon & Turnbull
Price: 8000 GBP
Availability: InStock

James Stirling, one of the foremost mathematicians of eighteenth-century Europe and a protégé of Sir Isaac Newton, played a pivotal role in the Newtonian revolution in mathematics. Renowned for his contributions to infinitesimal calculus and infinite series, he gives his name to two major discoveries in Stirling’s formula and the Stirling numbers. &nbsp;Stirling’s principal work, the Methodus Differentialis&nbsp;(1730), is present in the library in three remarkable forms: his holograph manuscript, his personally corrected first edition, and a first edition in English with autograph letters from the translator. His notebooks, covering subjects from infinite series to the figure of the earth and ancient weights and measures, are complemented by a selection of landmark works by his contemporaries, including a large-paper copy of Newton’s Principia Mathematica, a first edition of Newton’s Analysis&nbsp;Per Quantitatum&nbsp;series, fluxiones, ac differentias, and a first edition of Colin Maclaurin’s Treatise on Fluxions&nbsp;(to which Stirling contributed), alongside presentation copies of works by Brook Taylor, Abraham de Moivre and Pierre Louis Moreau de Maupertuis. The library also contains a spectacular collection of letters to Stirling from peers including Leonhard Euler, Nicolaus Bernoulli, and Gabriel Cramer. A selection of scientific instruments, believed to have been used by Stirling, completes this extraordinary collection.Buyer's Guide:&nbsp;

Cathy Tait | Head of Books & Manuscripts | Lyon & Turnbull Auctioneers

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The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician Auction

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together with the Kingdoms of Korea, and Tibet … With Notes Geographical, Historical and Critical; and Other Improvements, particularly in the Maps, by the Translator. London: by T. Gardner, for Edward Cave, 1738-41. 2 volumes, folio (40 x 24.6cm), contemporary sprinkled calf, spine-compartments ruled in gilt, morocco labels, edges sprinkled red, [4] xi [4] ii-xii 678, [4] 235 [1] 245-388 [10] pp., 64 engraved maps and plates (most of them folding), volume 1 with old oil-stain to inner margins of general map (bound facing title-page) and sigs. O1-2, plate of Confucius (listed to face p. 415) bound as frontispiece, plate 26 ('Plan of the Que tse-Kyen, listed to face p. 295) bound facing p. 660, volume 2 4H1 with extensive closed tear down fore margin, engraved music plate with short nick to fore margin, ‘The Observatory at Peking’ plate with tear to fore margin (one extending into image), a2 (index) with closed tear in text [ESTC T148343]

Du Halde, Jean Baptiste

A Description of the Empire of China, and Chinese-Tartary

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