Search Results: the first six books of the by byrne oliver euclid

London: Charles Whittingham for William Pickering, 1847. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. 1st Edition. Hardcover. 4to (236 x 186 mm). [7] viii-xxix [1], 268 pp. Including half-title, four-line woodcut initials, color diagrams throughout printed in red, blue, yellow and black. Contemporary three-quarter calf over cloth, spine-ends and raised bands with gilt-decoration, gilt-lettered red morocco spine-label, original blue endpapers (extremities rubbed, corners bumped). Some pale brown spotting of text as usual*, minor age-toning of paper, but in all a better-than-average, crisp and clean copy. ---- FIRST AND ONLY EDITION OF BYRNE'S SPECTACULAR RENDERING OF EUCLIDEAN GEOMETRY USING FOUR-COLOR PRINTING, AND "THE MOST ATTRACTIVE EDITION OF EUCLID THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN" (Oechslin). The stark use of primary colors was envisaged by Byrne as a teaching aid. "Each proposition is set in Caslon italic, with a four line initial engraved on wood by Mary Byfield: the rest of the page is a unique riot of red,… Read More

1847. EUCLID. The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid, in which Coloured Diagrams and Symbols are used instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners. By Oliver Byrne. xxix, [1], 268 pp., illustrated throughout with colour-printed diagrams. Small 4to, 237 x 188 mm., bound in original publisher's drab cloth, edges untrimmed, in a new half morocco protective box. London: [Charles Whittingham for] William Pickering, 1847. First and only edition of Byrne's Euclid, surely one of the most remarkable Victorian books. These Mondrian-like designs of bold, primary colours are printed in faultless register, and the striking composition on the page is unique in bookmaking. Ruari McLean describes it as "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century." Both McLean and Joan Friedman agree that it is Whittingham's "triumph." In describing the complicated printing processes, Friedman writes: "Although the areas of colour were all flat tones without… Read More

London: William Pickering,, 1847. The Mondrian of mathematics First edition of "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century" (McLean). The use of colour is its most iconic feature, with equal angles, lines, or polygonal regions assigned one of the three primary colours. It is rare in both the original cloth (as here) and in the original wrappers. Byrne (1810–1880) was a self-educated Irish mathematician and engineer who "considered that it might be easier to learn geometry if colours were substituted for the letters usually used to designate the angles and lines of geometric figures. Instead of referring to, say, 'angle ABC', Byrne's text substitued a blue or yellow or red section equivalent to similarly coloured sections in the theorem's main diagram" (Friedman). His style remarkably prefigures the modernist experiments of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements. Exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London 1851, the book was praised for the beauty and artistry of the printing.… Read More

London: William Pickering,, 1847. The Mondrian of mathematics First edition of "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century" (McLean). The use of colour is its most iconic feature, with equal angles, lines, or polygonal regions assigned one of the three primary colours. It is rare in both the original wrappers (as here) and in the original cloth. Byrne (1810-1880) was a self-educated Irish mathematician and engineer who "considered that it might be easier to learn geometry if colours were substituted for the letters usually used to designate the angles and lines of geometric figures. Instead of referring to, say, 'angle ABC', Byrne's text substitued a blue or yellow or red section equivalent to similarly coloured sections in the theorem's main diagram" (Friedman). His style prefigures the modernist experiments of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements. Exhibited at the Great Exhibition in London 1851, the book was praised for the beauty and artistry of the printing. However, the… Read More