BARROW, Isaac (editor).

Londini [London]: Excudebat Guil. Godbid, voeneunt apud Rob. Scott… 1675

2 works in 1 volume with a general title-page: The first work (Archimedes) in 3 parts, with 29 folding plates. Three leaves misbound. Lacking the leaf “Brevitatis gratia”, an explanation of mathematical symbols, which is rarely found and has clearly been excised in this copy. Tear in second L3 without loss. The second work (Barrow) in 2 parts, with 28 folding plates including one misbound in the Archimedes. The single leaf at the beginning of part 2, “Benevolo lectori”, was intended to be cancelled but is retained in this copy. Separate title-pages to each work (the second dated 1674). Light spotting and paper lightly browned. Contemporary calf (edges worn and chipped, rebacked and corners repaired, spine lettered in blind).

A rare collected issue of (1) the first edition of Barrow’s versions of, and commentaries on, the Sphere & Cylinder of Archimedes, the Conics of Apollonius, and the Spherics of Theodosius, expanded from his Lucasian lectures of 1666, and (2) a reissue of Barrow’s Lectiones XVIII (1669) and Lectiones geometricae (1670). Barrow would have nothing to do with the printing of his lectures, and were it not for the persistence of John Collins, the optical and geometrical lectures might have remained unpublished, but they appeared edited by Collins, with revisions and corrections by Isaac Newton. Barrow’s optical lectures “formed the most advanced treatise on geometrical optics then available and would form the basis and beginning point for Newton’s own, later Optical Lectures… The analysis throughout is detailed, elaborately geometrical, and tediously complete” (DiLaura). Apparently not in Wing or ESTC. Archimedes: Wing A3621 and ESTC R6704. Wing does not distinguish between this issue with the general title-page and the issue containing the Archimedes alone; ESTC R6704 gives the collation for parts 1–3 only, without the Barrow; most of the many holdings listed in ESTC are probably therefore the Archimedes alone. Barrow: Wing B945 and ESTC R3609 (parts 4 and 5). DiLaura, Bibliotheca Opticoria, 161.

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