Sectionum Conicarum Libre Quinque. Editio Secunda, Emendatior & Auctior

Edinburgi: Apud W. Sands, A. Murray, & J. Cochran. Sumptibus W. Sands, & A. Kincaid. 1750. 4to, 250 x 187 mms., pp. viii, 224, 38 folding engraved plates, contemporary calf; joints cracked (but holding, top and base of spine chipped, corners worn, spine rubbed. A very modest copy. Simson (1687 - 1768) published this work in 1735, but he had begun his intellectual career as a classicist. He began his studies at Glasgow University in 1701, and ten years later, he was offered the chair of mathematics, at the age of 24, having just acquired his first degree in the subject. ODNB notes that he published the present work " partly intended as an introduction to the treatise by Apollonius of Perga on the subject; here Simson employed methods of pure geometry rather than algebra. In 1738 he completed the restoration of the 'Loci plani' of Apollonius, a task already attempted by Fermat before 1629 and by Francis Schooten in 1657; his conclusions were published in 1749 in a work entitled Apollonii Pergaei locorum planorum libri II, restituti a R. Simson. He next occupied himself with the restoration of the 'Sectio determinata' of Apollonius, which had already been the subject of some investigations by Alexander Anderson in 1612 and by Willebrord Snel in 1634; Simson's version was published posthumously. His most influential work was probably his definitive edition of Euclid's Elements, which he published in 1756. Both his Euclid and his Conic Sections ran through many editions and were translated into several languages."