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: [Charles Whittingham at the Chiswick Press for] William Pickering, 1847. First edition, small 4to (235 x 185 mm), xxix, [1], 268pp., with half-title, with numerous diagrams, symbols and letters printed in three brilliant colours (red, blue & yellow), text printed in Caslon old face and Caslon italic, with woodcut initials, some intermittent spotting and staining as usual, contemporary half calf, rather rubbed, rebacked with partial original spine laid-down, corners renewed, a very good sound copy. First and only edition of Byrne's Euclid, considered to be a landmark example of Victorian book production and regarded by McLean to be "one of oddest and most beautiful books of the whole century." A self-educated mathematician and engineer, Byrne "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. Friedman, Color Printing in England 43; Keynes, Pickering, pp. 37 & 65; McLean, Victorian Book Design, p. 70.