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

London: William Pickering, 1847. First edition. Quarto (233 x 188 mm). A Very Good copy. Geometric title page vignette and extensive diagrams printed in red, yellow, and blue, wood-engraved headpieces, ornamental initials by C. Whittingham of Chiswick, text printed in Caslon old-face type. Contemporary blue pebble-grain cloth, spine lettered in gilt and ruled in blind, black coated endpapers, edges red. With 1918 pencil ownership signature to half-title. Light bumping, wear, and cockling, front joint starting at foot but holding firm, spine ends a little chipped, moderate foxing to contents, as commonly, minor damp staining to lower outer corner of final leaves, colors still bright.

The only edition of Byrne's stunning rendering of Euclidean geometry, it has been deemed "one of the oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century" (McLean). Printed in primary colors and black, Byrne's choice of method was both practical and aesthetic. In addition to creating a beautiful text, "the stark use of primary colors was envisaged by Byrne as a teaching aid" in which "each page is 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" (McLean).

Byrne (1810 - 1880) was a self-educated Irish mathematician and engineer who "considered that it might be easier to learn geometry if colours were substituted for the letters usually used to designate the angles and lines of geometric figures. Instead of referring to, say, 'angle ABC', Byrne's text substituted a blue or yellow or red section equivalent to similarly coloured sections in the theorem's main diagram" (Friedman). His style prefigures the modernist experiments of the Bauhaus and De Stijl movements.

Friedman, Color Printing in England 43; Keynes, Pickering, pp. 37, 65; McLean, Victorian Book Design, p. 70.