CHARLES DODGSON COPY
A Treatise on Problems of Maxima and Minima, Solved by Algebra
Wm. H. Allen & Co., 1859.
First UK edition. Original publisher's cloth lettered in gilt to the spine with blind decorations to the upper cover. Charles Lutwidge Dodgson's own copy, with his initials to the title page. A very good copy indeed with some wear to the spine ends. Presentation bookplate (to astronomer R.C. Carrington from the Secretary of State for India) to the front pastedown, crossed through in Dodgson's characteristic purple ink.
Ramchundra was a self taught Indian mathematician, who came to the attention of notable British mathematician and logician, Augustus De Morgan, when he was sent a copy of the privately published Calcutta edition of Maxima and Minima in 1850, in which the author seeks to find a method of finding maxima and minima without the use of differential calculus (i.e. with the use of algebra alone). So impressed was De Morgan that he undertook to introduce Ramchundra's work to western mathematical circles and oversaw the publication of his book in London.
Dodgson, who took the top first in mathematics in his finals at Oxford and remained at Christ Church as a mathematics lecturer for most of the rest of his life, had a particular interest in logic and linear algebra (an area in which he produced some notable original work). The sort of "for its own sake" algebraic endeavours conceived in this work are likely to be just problems which would appeal to Dodgson's fertile mind.
PROVENANCE: Richard Christopher Carrington (1826-1875, noted astronomer); Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, "Lewis Carroll" (1832-1898, author and mathematician, ownership initials to titlepage).
Stock ID: 35939
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