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First edition. Folio. Comprising: title page, Dedication, 10-page Introduction, 84 pages, then the Anti-Logarithmic Canon and Appendix, unnumbered, running from A to finish with page HHHH. The book is firmly bound in probably early to mid-twentieth century dark red half-Morocco, over dark red cloth covered boards, lettered in gilt and with raised bands to the spine, the leather is rubbed and the hinges are becoming fragile, the cloth is slightly marked and rubbed and there has been a knock to the top edge denting both front and rear boards. The text block is speckled red to all edges, it is age toned and slightly foxed to varying degrees depending upon the paper stock, there are short closed tears to the fore-edges of D2 and FFFF in the Anti-Logarithmic Canon, also staining to some pages and other minor damage to page edges. There are occasional small ink manuscript corrections throughout, and somewhat oddly between pages EEEE2 and FFFF there is an 1852 ad for a sewing machine tipped or bound in. With an excellent chain of provenance, most recently from the archives of the RSA Insurance Group with their barcode strip to the front endpaper. Previously owned by Henry Ambrose Smith, a notable actuary and philosopher mathematician, who co-authored a book of Assurance and Annuity Tables and lived in Aberdeen, with his ink ownership inscription dated 1842 to the first blank and the title page, additionally with a tipped or bound in note from him to the rear. To the rear pastedown is pasted a page from the original binding, with the earlier ownership note and inscription by the notoriously (according to his more Genteel colleagues) rude, vulgar, hard-drinking and pugilistic 18th century working class mathematician, surveyor and orientalist, Reuben Burrow (1747-1792) dated 1775, who has briefly annotated page IV of the Introduction, and also added a critical note in ink to the lower margin of page VI of the same, informing us that the Introduction was authored by William Jones Esq. and the later examples by Mr. John Robertson. The Jones noted presumably being William Jones (1675-1749), another notable mathematician and friend of Sir Isaac Newton, which is plausible enough, and plausibly on good authority, as Burrow was friends with the son of Jones, another William Jones (1746-1794), founder of the Asiatic Society, of which Burrow was a member. Below this, Henry Ambrose Smith continues the narrative, noting that after Burrows the book was owned by Nevil Maskelyne (1732-1811), the fifth Astronomer Royal and first person to scientifically measure the mass of the Earth, to whom Burrow was at one time assistant, tracing the provenance from Maskelyne to his own acquisition. Burrow also discusses the corrections, which were present when he obtained the book, compares them with another copy owned by Mr Reuben Robins, and asserts that he is confident from their accuracy that they can only be authorial and in the hand of James Dodson (died. 1757) himself, which would be the cherry on an already rich provenance cake. The corrections are confined almost entirely to numbers aside from a single word to page HHH2, however, comparison with papers in Dodson's hand held by the Royal Society suggest that Burrow's judgement was correct. An important work, not surpassed until the mid-nineteenth century. The first edition is not especially rare in commerce or institutional holdings, and neither is this an especially prepossessing example so far as condition is concerned, but as a multiple association copy, possibly with authorial corrections, it becomes rather special.
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