Mécanique Analytique. Troisième édition, revue, corrigée et annotée par M. J. Bertrand. Tome Premier - Second [complete set]

Paris: Mallet-Bachelier, 1853 2 volumes in one 4to (27.7 cm), [4], XIV, 428 pp; [4], IV, 390, [2] pp. Contemporary calf, covers with double fillets and arms of Christ's College Cambridge in gilt, spine gilt with gilt-lettered red morocco label, marbled edges, marbled end-papers, silk bookmark (biding slightly rubbed, extremities somewhat scuffed, occasional spotting or foxing). The second volume was published in 1855. A very good copy of the third edition of the foundational work on analytical mechanics, recognized as holding a position in the history of the subject second only to Newton’s Principia (Wolf). Lagrange’s masterpiece, first published in Paris in 1788, laid the groundwork for modern mechanics. "It is the first textbook to treat theoretical mechanics in a purely analytic way. Its mathematical importance stems mainly from the application of Lagrange's new formalization of the calculus of variations. An important factor for Lagrange was the unification of analytically formulated principles of mechanics: starting from a single principle, namely, his reworking of the principle of virtual velocities, which was a "combination" of the older form of that principle and the principle named after D'Alembert, it should be possible to develop in a deductive way, the whole of statics and dynamics." (Helmut Pulte)