![[QUADRANTS] SPEIDELL, JOHN. A breefe treatise of sphæricall triangles, wherein is handled the sixteene cases of a right angled triangle...](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/2015-11-23/1093650.jpg?itok=xWajhqUS)
Lot Details
Lot 232
London: Edward Alde, 1627. [BOUND WITH] COLLINS, JOHN. The description and uses of a general quadrant, with the horizontal projection upon it inverted. London: s.n. [but John Macock?], 1658. First edition, first issue. The two pamphlets bound in modern white vellum, spine gilt titled. 7 1/8 x 5 1/2 inches (18 x 13.5 cm) (for the Collins work). For the first work, [4], 43, [1] pp., i.e. the first part only, lacking the second part, the Geometrical Extraction; for the second [2], 54, [8] pp., collating A-H^[4]. Minor restoration to one leaf of the first work; the second with some toning, small wormhole in the lower margin, clear of the text, but generally a clean copy, with the Turner Collection bookplate of the University of Keele Library, dispersed 1998.
Ad 1: This is the first printing of Speidell's work on spherical triangles, useful in navigation. The second part, not present here, was first issued in 1616. ESTC S999. Ad II: The work by Collins bound at the end is quite rare, and is important to the history of navigational instruments. The author, a mathematician who was seven years at sea in an English merchantman, set up as a mathematician upon leaving the sea. In this role he was widely respected, and was styled the "Mersennus Anglus" by Isaac Barrow, and was a pivotal figure in the early years of the Royal Society. The second issue gives Macock as printer on a cancel title, but this first issue does not. Collin's work was popular, and saw several reprints; it was reissued with his The Sector on a Quadrant in 1658 and 1659. The quadrant described in this work was prepared by Henry Sutton, who also calculated some of the tables (see p. 55 for this stated attribution), who also drew the projections. It is a rare work, the last (and only) copy we find at auction in the past thirty years was in the Frank Streeter sale, 2007. ESTC R171444.
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