The Preparation Of Programs For An Electronic Digital Computer; with special reference to the EDSAC and use of a library of subroutines

First edition, first printing. Octavo hardcover in chocolate brown cloth. 167 pp. with index. A tight, near fine example, some light foxing to the fore edge of the text block and a small ownership name and date of 1951 top of the front free endpaper. spine lettering somewhat dulled; no errata sheet. Tipped onto the bottom of the title page is the label for the Scientific Computing Service Limited , 23 Bedford Square, London "Sole Agents in Great Britain". The first textbook on computer programming (and proportionately influential). The work had its genesis in a privately issued "Report on the Preparation of Programmes for the EDSAC" (1950) prepared by the University of Cambridge Mathematics Laboratory and issued to a small number of computer researchers; Wilkes felt that the paper deserved wider publication and was put in touch with the then-small Addison-Wesley Press in Massachusetts, which issued it after some revisions. The publisher, feeling at some risk in printing such a specialized work, would begin to pay royalties only after the first 1000 copies were sold.…