Elementary Treatise on Determinants 1867

This next book that I would like to showcase is a book that I wanted very much for the collection.

In 1867 Dodgson published his Elementary Treatise on Determinants and 750 copies were printed as

the first and only edition. In the field of mathematics it was an important contribution and a

landmark work subsequently recognised by many experts.

I had owned a copy previously for a year or two but that copy was in a calf prize binding, not in it’s

original brown cloth and endpapers. I sold that copy to Blackwell’s rare book department making a

very good profit when I needed some cash to help buy another important item. It then became a

goal to acquire a copy of the Determinants in original cloth and when the Denis Crutch Sale came

along I bid enthusiastically for the Crutch copy which fell to me for £3,900 (including premium).

Since this sale, there has been another copy auctioned but the Crutch copy is not repaired in any

way and only has some gentle fraying of the cloth at the tips of the spine.

The amusing story that goes around (without any truth) about Queen Victoria asking Mr Dodgson

for his next work after Alice in 1865 is flawed in any case because that would have been his 1866

pamphlet Condensation of Determinants (a copy in original wrappers is in this collection).