Elementary Principles of Carpentry; A Treatise on the Pressure and Equilibrium of Timber Framing, The Resistance of Timber, and the Construction of Floors, Centres, Bridges, Roofs; Uniting Iron and Stone with Timber, etc. With Practical Rules and Examples

London: Lockwood & Co, 1870. First Thus. Fifth edition, "corrected and considerably enlarged." Quarto (29cm). Rebound in modern brown half calf, with marbled paper-covered boards, titled in gold on spine; plain endpapers; xxii, 336pp; with portrait frontispiece, 64 plates (some folding), and numerous in-text wood engravings, complete. Plates 1-53 are line engravings; 54-64 are lithographs. A sturdy copy, with faint moisture spotting to leather corners, some dirt to top edge, occasionally affecting top margins;
some minor dampstaining on plates 29, 37, 62-4, and the outer corner of the appendix; with minor foxing, a Very Good copy.

(truncated) Thomas Tredgold (1788-1829) was a carpenter, self-taught engineer, and prolific author of technical works on engineering. This book, first published in 1820, was one of his most important, addressing the use of timber in "floors, roofs, bridges, and other structures," and including early, data-driven research on resistance. Though Tredgold's "insufficient mathematical training" ultimately impeded the book's utility, it was nevertheless one of the "standard textbooks of English engineers," with new editions printed until 1919 (ODNB).

Elementary Principles of Carpentry was edited and expanded as it was republished. The fourth edition added an appendix by mathematician Peter Barlow (1776-1862). The text of the fifth edition was thoroughly revised, though not expanded; however, new plates were added, with "several examples of modern roofs" (xiv). 10 copies of this edition are recorded in OCLC; NUC adds 8. Cf. BIBLIOTHECA MECHANICA pp.325-6 and LOWNDES 2708. (Inventory #: 54755)