Where can I find scans of historical texts?

by TheUltimatePoet

Hi.

I am interested in Historical texts, specifically for mathematics. I want to go back to the source to see where key concepts and modern mathematical notation was introduced.

I have tried google, but mostly find modern transcripts, though very arbitrarily stumble upon what I want.

Examples of some books I am looking for:

  • Sir Isaac Newton - Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica
  • René Descartes - La Géométrie (Book 1)
  • Euclid - Elements (Any original fragments)
  • Euclid - Elements (1570, Henry Billingsley's first English translation)

Does anyone have any suggestions to where I should look?

Farveille

gallica.bnf.fr is an awesome tool (very) often used by french scholars. Millions of historical documents are available on this website.

I did a quick search and most of the books you are looking for are available there.

SRKincaid

This is what I actually do to pay the bills!

Scans of Euclid can be found at http://www.claymath.org/library/historical/euclid/

Abbagnano

The Cambridge University Library hosts a number of scans that might interest you, including the 1687 edition of the Principia and other Newton papers.