Name: Auction: Cato, Marcus Porcius, & others Libri de re rustica
Brand: Lyon & Turnbull
Price: 500 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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Paris: apud Galeotum [Galliot], 1533. Folio (33.1 x 21cm), contemporary French calf, gilt fleurons to spine-compartments, gilt strapwork lozenge to centre of each cover, text in roman letter, ruled by hand in red ink, printer's woodcut device to title-pages, a few woodcut diagrams in text, early annotations and ownership inscriptions including ‘L. Lelarge' to front endpapers and title-page, occasional early marginalia, binding worn, spine with later manuscript title to top compartment and loss to head and foot, a few small marginal worm-tracks, intermittent damp-staining, final blank H10 apparently original but pasted down, replacing endpaper [Adams S810]

Cato, Marcus Porcius, & others

Libri de re rustica

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