EUCLID (fl. c.300 B.C.) The Elements of Geometrie. Translated into English by Sir Henry Billingsley (d.1606), with a preface and a few additions in the text by John Dee (1527-1608). London: John Day, 1570. 2° (306 x 202mm). Title within a woodcut historiated and allegorical border, folding letterpress 'Groundplat' accompanying Dee's preface, geometrical diagrams throughout, 37 or 38 in Book XI with one or more overslips, woodcut initials and ornaments and a large portrait of the printer on verso of errata/colophon leaf, errata corrected in a near contemporary hand (lacks the final blank, title cut round and mounted with no loss, 'Groundplat' torn and mounted, colophon leaf unnecessarily reinforced at the margins, title and following 4 leaves very stained, brown stain in fore-margins throughout, spotting and waterstaining to a greater or lesser extent throughout, small round wormhole in the text as far as Gg6). 19th-century half calf, blindstamped spine, title and imprint in gilt in 2 compartments (a little rubbed, corners worn). Provenance: James ? (17th-century beginning of a signature on fore-margin of second leaf) -- From the Library of John Jackson (1793-1875) of Academy Place, Warrington (bookplate). FIRST COMPLETE ENGLISH TRANSLATION OF EUCLID - some part of his Elements had been adapted by Robert Recorde in his The Pathway to Knowledge, (London, 1551) for the purposes of land measuring, surveying and building. This translation by the future Lord Mayor of London, Sir Henry Billingsley, borrows heavily from the work of two previous editors, Campanus and Zamberti, and also relies on contributions by Oronce Fine and John Dee who was not only responsible for the 'very fruitfull preface', but contributed many annotations and additional theorems. The DNB states that this preface is the most influential of all Dee's published works (rather quaintly subscribed 'Written at my poore House At Mortlake'). In it he exculpates himself from the charge of conjuring though accepting that 'thynges mathematicall' partake both of the supernatural as well as of the natural. He foreshadows, in his concept of 'Archemastrie', the experimental science of the following century, 'but he also hints at magical interests and practices under this very heading. In general the "Praeface" is now seen as a retrospective view of his own practice and teaching after his return to England in 1551, but the interest in magic, and possibly in skrying (seeing, or conversing with, spirits, may be a development of the late 1560s'. Thomas-Stanford 41; STC 10560.