Lot 46
Moivre, Abraham de
The Doctrine of Chances
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
or, a Method of Calculating the Probabilities of Events in Play. London: printed for the Author, by H. Woodfall, 1738. 4to (28 x 22cm), contemporary calf, [4] xiv 256 pp., binding rubbed and scuffed, lacking label, with a bifolium signed 2L1-2 and comprising ‘Table of Contents’ (paginated 257-8), and errata leaf (unpaginated, verso blank) loosely inserted and apparently never bound in (the margins being wider than the book's and consequently nicked and rumpled), binding rubbed, C1 with loss to lower fore corner [ESTC N6410, cf. T33064 for copies with the final quire 2L; Kress 4395; Tomash & Williams M118 refers]
Footnote
Second edition, greatly enlarged and improved, possibly a large-paper copy. ‘[The] first edition [of 1718] is essentially a gambler’s handbook. It was in the second edition (1738) that de Moivre proposed an approximation to the binomial probability distribution of events (the so-called normal distribution). This distribution remained the basis of the science of statistics for the next two hundred years’ (Tomash & Williams). Copies comprising 256 pages and lacking the Table of Contents or errata leaf, as here, might represent an earlier issue.