GAUSS, KARL FRIEDRICH. Recherches Arithmétiques . . . Traduites par A.-C.-M. Poullet-Delisle. xx, [2], 502 pages, including half-title and errata leaf. 4to, 259x195 mm, later 1/4 vellum, spine faded; contents browned, small wormhole in blank outer margin of opening leaves, owner's stamp on title. Paris: Courcier, 1807
first edition in french and first foreign-language version of Gauss's 1801 landmark Disquisitiones arithmeticae. Published when the author was 24, "the 'Disquisitiones arithmeticae' collected all the masterful work in number theory of Gauss's predecessors and enriched it to such an extent that the beginning of modern number theory is sometimes dated from the publication of this book. Its core is the theory of quadratic congruences, forms, and residues; it culminates in the law of quadratic residues . . . of which Gauss gave the first proof"--Struik, Concise History of Mathematics, page 205. DSB V, 299; Grolier/Horblit 38; Norman 878; Printing and the Mind of Man 257 (all citing the original edition in Latin).
