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Mathematical Treasure: Robert Steell’s Treatise of Conic Sections

Author(s): 
Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University)

A Treatise of [or on] Conic Sections was a popular title among British mathematics textbooks of the late 18th and early 19th centuries. However, Robert Steell’s book of 1723 is unique in that it is one of the first mathematics books written and published in Ireland. Little is known of the author other than that he was a native of Dublin and he died in 1726; Rod Gow has compiled the known information.

Title page of Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Table of symbols from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Sample pages from this book:

Page 1 from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Page 12 from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Page 13 from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Page 86 from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

Plate 2 from Robert Steell's 1723 A Treatise on Conic Sections.

A full digitization of the copy owned by the British Library is available from GoogleBooks.

A reprint edition appeared in London in 1745.

Title page of the 1745 reprint edition of Steell's A Treatise of Conic Sections.

A full digitization of the copy owned by the University of Michigan can be found in the Internet Archive.

Index to Mathematical Treasures

Frank J. Swetz (The Pennsylvania State University), "Mathematical Treasure: Robert Steell’s Treatise of Conic Sections," Convergence (January 2024)