Euclid | "a unique riot of red, yellow and blue … attaining a verve not seen again on book pages till the days of Dufy, Matisse and Derain," London, 1847

Euclid

The First Six Books of the Elements of Euclid in which Coloured Diagrams and Symbols are Used instead of Letters for the Greater Ease of Learners. By Oliver Byrne. London: William Pickering (printed by C. Whittingham, Chiswick), 1847

4to (234 x 188 mm). Half-title, brilliant color woodblock mathematical diagrams (in red, blue, yellow, and black) designed by Oliver Byrne printed throughout by Charles Whittingham, four-line woodcut criblé style initials engraved by Mary Byfield; usual foxing, chiefly marginal, lower fore-edge corner of FF3 lost. Publisher’s blue cloth, covers panelled in blind, front cover and spine lettered in gilt with geometric and ornamental device, respectively, yellow-coated endpapers, gilt edges; rebacked preserving original spine with some minor restoration, extremities rubbed. Blue cloth folding-case, blue morocco label gilt.

First edition. A very good copy of Byrne's stunning rendering of Euclidean geometry in primary colors, “visually striking and a triumph of color printing” (Friedman). Byrne, a surveyor of the Falkland Islands and author of a number of works on mathematics, thought that by using color one could facilitate the study of geometry. He wrote in his introduction, “This Work has a greater aim than mere illustration; we do not introduce colours for the purpose of entertainment, or to amuse by certain combinations of tint and form, but to assist the mind in its researches after truth, to increase the facilities of instruction, and to diffuse permanent knowledge.” Byrne has latterly been dubbed “the Matisse of Mathematics.”

Ruari McLean deemed Byrne’s edition “one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century,” but he doubted its pedagogical value, calling the presentation “a decided complication of Euclid, but a triumph for Charles Whittingham.” Edward Tufte, on the other hand, believes that “Byrne's design clarifies the overly indirect and complicated Euclid, at least for certain readers.”

“Each proposition is set in Caslon italic, with a four line initial engraved on wood by Mary Byfield: the rest of the page is a unique riot of red, yellow and blue: on some pages letters and numbers only are printed in color, sprinkled over the pages like tiny wild flowers, demanding the most meticulous register; elsewhere, solid squares, triangles, and circles are printed in gaudy and theatrical colors, attaining a verve not seen again on book pages till the days of Dufy, Matisse and Derain” (McLean). 

REFERENCES

Friedman, Color Printing in England 43; Ing, Charles Whittingham Printer 46; Keynes, Pickering, pp. 37, 65; McLean, Victorian Book Design & Colour Printing, p. 70; Tufte, Envisioning Information, pp. 84–87. Facsimile: Oliver Byrne: The Elements of Euclid, with an essay by Werner Oechslin (Taschen, 2010)