Fine presentation copy from the book’s editor the mathematician Robert Smith, younger cousin and Trinity College, Cambridge room-mate of the book’s author, Roger Cotes. In addition to posthumously editing his cousin’s book, Smith, another Fellow of Trinity, would also succeed to Cotes’s Plumian Professorship of astronomy and experimental philosophy, and achieve the mastership of the Cambridge college that they shared with their great contemporary Isaac Newton. Robert Smith was called upon to edit his cousin’s work after Cotes died suddenly in 1717, still only in his thirties, and this work and its successor made Smith’s reputation outside Cambridge as well as cementing Cotes’ own.
Robert Smith has written on the verso of the first marbled flyleaf: ‘Ralph Leycester - Ex dono Roberti Smith’, an inscription that must post-date the calf binding, presumably executed at Smith’s behest. Ralph Leycester hailed from Toft in Cheshire (1699-1777) and Robert Smith is recorded in the Trinity Admissions Book as being his tutor. The two went on to become friends who kept in touch for decades. The book’s author, Roger Cotes, a slightly older Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge is regarded as perhaps the most gifted mathematician in England in the generation after Newton. He was called on to make the corrections to the second edition of Isaac Newton’s Principia although (inevitably) falling out with Newton in the process. His sudden death was mourned by Newton who especially regretted the consequent loss to scholarship. This book contains much that develops Newton’s work, notably in trigonometric quantities, ratios and quadratures.
DESCRIPTION:
A handsome quarto bound in contemporary cat’s paw calf with gilt decoration, executed either in Cambridge or London. The spine label is missing although the legend ‘Cotesia Opera’ (Cotes’ Works) is just readable. The upper board is only attached by its strings. Marbled endpapers. Half title present, and preliminaries [20], pp, 249, [1], [2], 125, [1] Foldout diagram opposite r1. A very clean copy internally.
