Boole, Mary Everest. The Mathematical Psychology of Gratry and Boole. Translated from the Language of the Higher Calculus into that of Elementary Geometry. London: Swan Sonnenschein & Co. Ltd., 1897.

Octavo. Original brown cloth, titles to spine gilt, black coated endpapers. Lightly rubbed at the extremities, spine a little rolled and darkened with some minor wear at the ends, contents slightly toned. A very good copy.

First edition, first printing.

Mary Everest Boole (1832-1916) was a pioneering educator and mathematician whose work bridged the gap between abstract mathematics and pedagogy. Encouraged from a young age by her rector father, she developed a strong interest in mathematics. At eighteen, she became a student of the logician George Boole, whose book on logic, she later wrote, led her to fall in love with him. They married in 1855 and moved to Cork, where he was a professor. George encouraged Mary to deepen her mathematical knowledge, reading his Differential Equations to her and refining its language until it was fully comprehensible.

Following George’s death, Mary became a matron at Queen’s College and devoted herself to mathematical education. She believed children should construct mathematical tables before using them and emphasized logical thinking in education. The Mathematical Psychology of Gratry and Boole is a comparative analysis of the philosophical writings of the French thinker P. Gratry—whom George Boole admired—alongside her husband’s mathematical theories. She sought to explain these concepts using elementary geometric principles, though with mixed success. Despite this, the book remains an important work in mathematical philosophy and education. [Ref: 327] £175