Author: FERGUSON (James):
Title: The Art of drawing in Perspective made easy To those who have no previous Knowledge of the Mathematics. The Second Edition. Illustrated with Plates.
Description: London: Printed W. Strahan; and T. Cadell..., 1778. Tall 8vo, 219 x 126 mms., pp. xii, 123 [124 adverts], nine folding engraved plates, contemporary calf, black leather label (chipped); rear joint cracked (but firm), top and base of spine chipped, corners worn, spine a little dried. The inventor and lecturer James Ferguson (1710 - 1776) displayed an early interest in mechanical engineering by watching his father use a lever to raise a dilapidated cottage roof. He began making clocks and other mechanical objects in his teens. He published a book on the orrery in 1746, but the book that made his reputation and his fortune was Astronomy Explained upon Sir Isaac Newton's Principles and Made Easy for Those Who Have Not Studied Mathematics (1756). This was his last major publication, first published in 1775. Quoting large chunks of the work, the reviewer for The Critical Review in 1775 concluded, "The whole is delivered in that style of plainness and simplicity which cannot fail of rendering the book to such readers as have made little or not progress in this branch of science; a mode of writing the best calculated for diffusing general instruction, which Mr. Ferguson, in all his productions, has successfully endeavoured to promote."

Keywords: art technology prose


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