Name: Auction: Antiquarian literature Collection of works, mainly 18th century
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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Newcomb, Thomas. The Manners of the Age: in Thirteen Moral Satires. Written with a Design to expose the Vicious and Irregular Conduct of Both Sexes, in the Various Pursuits of Life. London: for Jer. Batley, 1733. First octavo edition (presumably following the quarto edition of the same year), contemporary sheep gilt, [4] 587 pp., errata leaf, woodcut tailpieces, small closed tear in X1 [ESTC T97208];&nbsp; [Pope, Alexander]. The Dunciad, Variorum. With the Prolegomena of Scriblerus. London: for A. Dod, 1729. 4to, contemporary sprinkled calf, gilt spine, red morocco label, 29 [3] 2-124 [2] pp., engraved title-page, addenda leaf, bound with at rear John Gay, Polly: an Opera, London: for the author, 1729, [2] vii [1] 1-72 pp., 31 pp. engraved music to rear;&nbsp; [Ramsay, Andrew Michael, ‘Chevalier']. Travels of Cyrus. London: James Bettenham, 1730. Fourth edition, 4to, contemporary panelled calf, [4] xvi [4] 363 [1] 110 pp., engraved head and tailpieces and initials by Vandergucht, ownership inscription of James Stirling to front pastedown, binding rubbed, joints cracked, lacking rear free endpaper;&nbsp; and 16 others (these not collated), all in contemporary calf, including Niccolo Macchiavelli, Opere, The Hague, 1726 (4 volumes, 12mo), Montesquieu, L'esprit des loix, Edinburgh, 1750 (2 volumes, 8vo), works by Smollett and Voltaire, and similar (26)

Antiquarian literature

Collection of works, mainly 18th century

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