[Rare presentation inscription] The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid

rare presentation inscription

A rare presentation copy - perhaps the only known - of the first edition of 'one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century' (McLean, Victorian Book Design). Inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper, 'To R.N. Russell, with the author's best respect'. We have been unable to locate any other inscribed copy in auction or historical records. The identity of the recipient is unclear, but he may have been Richard N. Russell (1803-1871), a member of the prominent Russell family of Limerick, though this theory is complicated by the fact that Byrne was an Irish nationalist and the Russells were Protestant. Because the Elements was so expensive to produce it is unlikely that many copies were available to gift, and so the recipient may have been a patron or potential patron.

Euclid's Elements is the oldest, large-scale deductive treatment of mathematics, comprising thirteen books explaining geometry, number theory, and imaginary numbers through theorems and their proofs. Used as a textbook for more than 2,000 years, it was the first significant mathematical work in print (Hook & Norman, The Norman Library of Science and Medicine 729, for the editio princeps).

Though many editions of Euclid have been published, the present one by Irish mathematician and civil engineer Oliver Byrne (1810-1890) is considered the most attractive and graphically innovative. Byrne reduced prose and labels to a minimum, instead using blue, red, yellow, and black to differentiate elements of each geometric proof. The print run of one thousand copies was complex, as each colour being applied to a different printing block required a high degree of precision. This was carried out by the Chiswick Press, 'the foremost name in Victorian book design' and 'synonymous with good typography and printing throughout the [Victorian] period' (McLean, Victorian Book Design and Colour Printing). Though the Elements was not commercially successful - the retail price of 25 shillings was extortionately high - it is now celebrated as an important step in graphic design that 'prefigures the modernist experiments of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements' (The Public Domain Review).

First edition, presentation copy inscribed by the author on the front free endpaper; 4to; diagrams printed in black, yellow, red, and blue throughout, foxing as usual, small chips from the front free endpaper filled; original blue cloth, titles to spine and upper board blocked in gilt, boards blocked in blind, yellow coated endpapers, all edges gilt, housed in a blue cloth folding case, rebacked with the original spine paid down, some loss of the original cloth at the ends of the spine, corners repaired, a very good copy; 268pp.