Euclid of Alexandria is considered the ‘Father of Geometry’. The foundation of our understanding of geometry, algebra, and number theory, Euclid’s Elements has been translated and re-interpreted from the original Greek countless times over the centuries. Euclidean geometry is still taught in schools today.
Although it is largely accepted that Euclid was the author of Elements, the historical references to him as a person were not written until many centuries after he lived, and consequently little is known about his life. Proclus wrote that Euclid must have lived during the time of Ptolemy I because he was referred to in the writings of Archimedes, who lived between 287-212 B.C. The mystery surrounding the character of Euclid has extended to such an extent that occasionally he was confused with Euclid of Megara, a later philosopher whose image had been printed on coins.
Sir Henry Billingsley, a translator and haberdasher, saw a challenge to be had in translating Euclid’s Elements into English for the first time. In a note from the translator to the reader, Billingsley wrote, ‘without the diligent studies of Euclides Elementes it is impossible to attaine unto the perfect knowledge of Geometrie, and consequently of any other of the Mathematicall sciences’.
Remarkably, Billingsley included pull-out sections which illustrated the geometrical ideas in three-dimensions. For early printers, the Euclidean diagrams had presented a challenge. Woodcuts were not fine enough to produce the thin lines and ideal shapes of geometric diagrams. Copper engravings, being printed in a separate process on plate paper, were expensive and complex to align with the passages of text. While metalcut diagrams printed in the margins were a solution for the first edition, new problems arose in later books when Euclid went on to explain the solid geometry of three dimensions. In this respect, the edition was innovative, folding paper cut-outs were used to illustrate three-dimensional geometry for the first time in book design.
Billingsley’s 1570 text also included a ‘Praeface’ by John Dee, who classified and elaborated upon the mathematical arts, as well as correcting a few of Billingsley’s errors. Dee was a trusted advisor of Queen Elizabeth I in scientific and astrological matters and his preface became widely influential.
Henry Billingsley’s translation owes much of its success to Dee’s preface. Although Billingsley’s work was original in its own way, Dee was a well-known figure in academic circles, famous for dabbling in magic and later studying alchemy. In 1563, some years before writing his preface, John Dee had visited Federico Commandino in Urbino. Upon this meeting, Dee gave Commandino a manuscript of the Latin translation of an Arabic work related to Euclid’s ‘On Divisions’, of which the Greek original is lost.
Commandino produced his own translation of Elements from Greek to Latin in 1572. His volume may not have included the technical innovations seen in Billingsley’s, but his Latin edition has been widely used in the learning of geometry.
Almost three hundred years after Billingsley’s English translation, in 1847, Oliver Byrne produced his own translation (BOOK SOLD). Byrne was a civil engineer by training, who was appointed surveyor of the Falkland Islands and in the 1850s spent time in the USA promoting the cause of the Irish revolt against British rule. Byrne wrote many works on mathematics.
What set Byrne’s edition apart was his particular interest in the educative function of Euclid’s Elements for children. His version had as little text as possible, instead illustrating the complicated theories using diagrams laced with primary colours. Much like Billingsley and his printer had attempted to do hundreds of years earlier, Byrne was attempting a new visual representation of mathematical theory.
Upon seeing Byrne’s pleasingly geometric illustrations, one is immediately struck by the resemblance between his works and the later modern art movements of the early 20th century especially the Dutch De Stijl movement. His use of primary colours and placement beautifully capture the purity of plane geometry in the same way that the De Stijl movement sought to refine art down to its most basic components.
Some years later, Sir Thomas Little Heath (1861-1940) also undertook a translation. An excellent civil servant, Heath was known for his honesty, accuracy, reliability and technical knowledge. These elements of his personality, combined with his study of classics and mathematics at Cambridge placed him in good standing to translate Euclid’s Elements into the English of the 20th century.
There is little doubt that Heath would have been familiar with Euclid’s elements, as not only was he one of the world’s leading authorities on Greek mathematics, but he owned the very copy of Billingsley’s translation which Peter Harrington has acquired. Heath’s pencilled ownership inscription is on the flyleaf, dated 17 March 1900, dating from the period when he was gathering materials in preparation for his own edition.
In 1908, he produced his own impressive three-volume edition of Elements.
Without the obscurity that Byrne had about him, Heath’s position in the public domain and his standing in the mathematics community meant that his English translation has remained a favourite, despite lacking some of the charm of Byrne’s artistic endeavor. Heath maintained Euclid’s strong logical choice of axioms and his infallible order of proof, and instead left his mark on the work in the accuracy of his translation.
It is strange to think that one of modern economics most formative theories wouldn’t have happened were it not for a book about managing tea rooms. Peter Harrington has recently acquired the curious volume Tea Room and Cafeteria Management by the American economic theorist R. N. Elliott, the first book written by the man behind Elliott’s Wave theory.
Ralph Nelson Elliott began his career as an accountant working in executive positions for railway companies, primarily in Central America and Mexico. When civil unrest broke out in Mexico during the 1920s, he was forced to return to the United States. He settled in New York City with his wife and it was there he began what became a successful consulting business.
In 1924, Elliott was selected to be the Chief Accountant to Nicaragua in 1924, which at the time was under American rule. Not long after this appointment, Elliott wrote two books, Tea Room and Cafeteria Management and The Future of Latin America.
In writing Tea Room and Cafeteria Management, Elliott spent many hours studying the management of tea rooms, leading to him becoming a familiar figure within the industry. It was with similar vigour that Elliott was to approach the subject which later gained him fame within the economics community.
After being forced to retire early due to contracting a severe intestinal illness in Central America, Elliott found himself returning to America at the age of 58. It was the early 1930s, and in the wake of the Wall Street Crash people were searching for answers. In his retirement Elliott began to meticulously study stock market data, going back 75 years with records which relayed changes in half-hour increments.
The result of this intense period of study was Elliott’s Wave theory; a belief that the natural laws of the stock market could be measured and forecast using fibonacci numbers. Elliott wasn’t providing and cheat trick to keep the market safe, but he was providing a way in which the rises and falls of the market could be foreseen and defended against.
Elliott took his theory to Charles J. Collins of Investment Counsel Inc. in Detroit. Collins had been presented with many other similar theories in recent years but it was only Elliott’s which made sense to him.
On 13th March 1935, with the Dow Jones closing at a low, Elliott sent a telegram to Collins saying that, based on his Wave theory, “ALL AVERAGES ARE MAKING FINAL BOTTOM”. Elliott was right, the 13-month correction was over and the markets began to recover. Having proved his theory accurate, Collins agreed to work with Elliott, and together they wrote The Wave Principle.
It is remarkable that Elliott’s career in writing began with the publication of such an extensive study of the humble tea room, and ended with a theory which was ground-breaking at the time and still hotly debated today.
The Ship that Sailed to Mars is one of those books that will reduce even adults into a state of childish awe. Written and illustrated by William M. Timlin, Peter Harrington has an incredible quarto edition bound by The Chelsea Bindery. The book is complete with 48 mounted illustrations and pages of text, unset in Timlin’s original style.
Timlin’s story has the perfect combination of wonder, fearlessness, exploration and imagination which makes it the epitome of children’s literature. This volume, handsome and richly bound is in itself the kind of book which children fantasize about, but which recently seem to exist only in cartoons.
Timlin had grown up in Northumberland, but relocated to South Africa with his family before the outbreak of World War 1. In South Africa, he established himself as a successful architect and artist, designing important buildings in his community and exhibiting regularly.
In 1921, Timlin began to write The Ship that Sailed to Mars as a project to distract his young son. Soon, he began to find the task becoming an increasingly ambitious endeavour, and it eventually took him two years to complete. The resulting volume was one of 48 pages of calligraphed text and 48 corresponding images.
Having taken on a life of it’s own, and expanded so greatly from it’s beginnings as a father and son project, Timlin knew there was something special about The Ship that Sailed to Mars, and so sent it to the publishers George Harrap. Noticing the resemblance between Timlin’s work and predecessors such as Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac, George Harrap decided to publish without typesetting, leaving the original work complete in all it’s majesty.
The book begins with an old man with a bold dream – to sail to Mars “by way of the moon and the most friendly planets”, despite being told by scientists and wise men that no such thing is possible. He enlists the help of the mischievous Fairies who help him to construct his ship and travel with him as his adventure begins. Along the journey they encounter various obstacles, both on earth and en route to Mars.
The work was published in an edition of 2,000, with only 250 being sent to the US. Despite the small number of copies which made their way across the atlantic, the book proved a huge hit and the film rights were even purchased from Timlin, although no film was ever made. The legacy of this small production lives on in this beautifully produced edition.
A bank collapses, and the public rush to withdraw their savings as the fear of losing everything sets in. It’s a familiar story, but isn’t necessarily one that exists only in the twentieth and twenty-first century.
In 1866, the London wholesale discount bank Overend, Gurney and Company collapsed, with debts of £11 million (£1bn in today’s money). It was the greatest casualty of the credit crisis in the later half of the 19th Century. The public panicked, and flocked to Lombard Street in protest.
Two decades previously, the Banker Charter Act of 1844 had restricted the powers of British banks, giving exclusive note-lending powers to the Bank of England, thus giving them greater and greater power as Britain’s central bank, but without much reform to the institution.
It was against this financially backdrop that Walter Bagehot, editor-in-chief of The Economist, published Lombard Street: A Description of the Money Market, which has come to be known as the “most frequently quoted book in the entire banking literature”.
Addressing Victorian businessmen, Bagehot attempted to show how the system could be modernised from within, without reforming the institution as a whole. His ideas appealed perfectly to his demographic: the pre-existent central bank statesmanship should be approached with a laissez-faire philosophy.
The fractional reserve banking system had made Britain immensely wealthy, investing gold in projects such as railways and factories, which turned over greater profit year-by-year, and keeping only a small amount in gold stores. However, according to Bagehot, this wealth did not translate to stability.
In the wake of the credit crunch of the previous decade, Lombard Street proposed the following idea: adjust gold reserves depending on the condition of the economy. If the Bank of England did so, it should be able to protect itself against the large amounts of financial damage it might incur if the market underwent a dramatic fluctuation. Should the worst happen, ‘Bagehot’s Dictum’ posed a solution: insolvent banks should not be helped by the Bank of England, large amounts should be lent freely to solvent banks, and penalties should be accorded to illiquid and solvent banks in need of rescue.
The shifting class system of late Victorian Britain also provided inspiration for Bagehot. The new emerging entrepreneurial classes had to be incorporated into the study of economics, which Bagehot saw as being as much about cultural and social shifts as straight-forward matters of money. It is ideas such as this that have had longevity with bankers, and is part of the reason why Lombard Street has remained a must-read.
But Bagehot went a step further. He suggested that banks should do more than simply being aware of changes to the economy and society: they should adjust themselves accordingly. These changes would strengthen the pre-existing system without requiring any extensive overhaul or reform.
Bagehot was an influencer on the periphery of the public eye, having written two books on political philosophy and dozens of historical and literary essays. Despite the fact that he never entered parliament, and therefore could not enact the changes he thought needed to be made, Gladstone referred to him as ‘a kind of spare Chancellor of the Exchequer’.
John Maynard Keynes, greatly influenced by Lombard Street, wrote of it as “an undying classic”, and even after the financial crisis of 2007, ‘Bagehot’s dictum’ was cited by a number of central bankers. It is a testament to Bagehot’s success that he recommends a system which will be familiar to today’s bankers.
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