Somerville's Booklist

Mary Somerville was acquainted with John Playfair (1748 - 1819), joint Professor of Mathematics in Edinburgh University from 1785 to 1805, with Sir John Leslie (1766 - 1832) Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh from 1805 to 1819, and with William Wallace (1786 - 1843) Professor of Mathematics at Edinburgh from 1819 to 1838.

Mary seems to have first made Wallace's acquaintance when Wallace, who was an excellent teacher, taught mathematics at the Royal Military College at Great Marlow in Buckinghamshire. When teaching there, he began a mathematical journal which contained mathematical problems and puzzles. Mary submitted solutions to some of these and started a mathematical correspondence with him.

When Mary told Wallace that she wished to make a deep study of mathematics and astronomy he recommended her a small library of books. Mary bought them in 1813 when she was 33 and used and valued them till the end of her long life.

All were recent publications and many were in French. Here is a list:

Biot	Analytic geometry and astronomy
Callet	Logarithms
Clairaut	Figure of the earth
Euler	Algebra
Euler	Isoperimetrical problems (in Latin)
Francoeur	Pure Mathematics
Francoeur	Elements of mechanics
Lacroix	Algebra
Lacroix	Differential and integral calculus
Lacroix	Finite differences and series
Lagrange	Theory of analytic functions
Laplace	Mécanique céleste
Laplace	Analytical theory of probabilities
Monge	Application of analysis to geometry
Poisson	Treatise on mechanics

Note by: Helen Cook

Last Updated August 2000