TREDGOLD, Thomas; [W. S. WOOLHOUSE]; [James HANN]; [Robert ARMSTRONG]

Tredgold on the Steam Engine. Marine Engines and Boilers: Exemplified in Numerous Examples of British and American Steam Vessels. With Descriptive Text by Eminent Engineers

London: Virtue & Co., n.d. [but 1860]. Quarto (33cm). In original brown publisher's cloth, stamped in blind on boards, titled on spines in gold; yellow coated endpapers; vol. I: viii, 342, 34, 52, 19, [1], 5. [3]pp; vol. II: vi, 44, 52, 8, 8, 16, 68, 32pp; with 166 engraved plates (56 in vol. I and 109 in vol. II), many folding. Ex-library stamps from the Institute of Marine Engineers to front free endpapers. Plates in vol. 2 numbered in pencil, occasionally incorrectly. Tight, sturdy bindings, reinforced at heads, tails, and hinges, one plate in vol. I reinforced at lower margin with cellotape; one plate torn; slight dirt to top edges of many plates, occasional spots of foxing: Good.

James Sprent Virtue (1829-1892) purchased the Rudimentary Series of engineering and scientific publications from Thomas Tredgold's publisher John Weale some time in the 1850s. It appears that he also took over the publication rights to Tredgold's Steam Engine. Marine Engines and Boilers is not a straightforward reprint of the second division of Weale's 1850-53 edition; instead, it comprises essays and plates from both the second and third divisions. It also includes a glossary of terms in Spanish and French, indicating the international nature of engineering research in this era.

Tredgold (1788-1829) was a self-taught engineer and widely read technical author who also published on timber and carpentry, cast iron, railroads and carriages, and heating and ventilation. Several of his works became "the standard textbooks of English engineers" (ODNB). His final work The Steam Engine (1827) was a "notable contribution to steam engine design and theory" (James K. Finch, Engineering Classics, p.110). Architectual publisher John Weale published significantly expanded second and third editions in 1838 and in 1850. Tredgold may be best remembered for his definition of engineering, used by the Institute of Civil Engineers in its 1828 application for a royal charter: "the art of directing the great sources of power in nature for the use and convenience of man" (Miller, "The Classics of Engineering Literature," College English 19:2, 1957). LOWNDES 2709.

Price: $650.00

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