Lot 9
Newton, Sir Isaac
De mundi systemate
The Library of James Stirling, Mathematician
Auction: 23 October 2025 from 13:00 GMT
Description
London: J. Tonson, J. Osborn, & T. Longman, 1728. 4to (23.9 x 17.6cm), contemporary panelled calf, red morocco spine label, iv 108 pp., title-page printed in red and black, 2 engraved folding plates [Babson 16; Wallis 19]
Footnote
First edition, given to James Stirling by fellow Newtonian Abraham de Moivre, with Stirling's inscription ‘Ja: Stirling Ex Dono Dni De Moivre’ to the front pastedown. Stirling and de Moivre were both personal friends of Newton as well as leading contemporary proponents of Newtonianism. One of Stirling's principal contributions to mathematics, a formula for approximating to the logarithm of a large factorial, remembered eponymously as Stirling's formula, owed much to the work of De Moivre, 'whose early investigations led Stirling into this topic and who found a simpler version after learning of Stirling's result' (ODNB). The text of De Mundi Systemate is an earlier version of the third book of the Principia, printed from a manuscript found in the library of Trinity College, Cambridge. An English translation was published in the same year.