LEYBOURN, WILLIAM. 1626-1716.
Pleasure with Profit: consisting of Recreations of Divers Kinds.... London: for R. Baldwin and J. Dunton, 1694.
Folio (315 x 192 mm). 2 folding engraved plates, woodcut illustrations and diagrams in text. 18th century speckled calf, spine with 5 raised bands, morocco lettering piece. Upper cover detached, chipping to spine, browning, minor staining.
FIRST EDITION. Leybourn was a man of multifarious talents: a mathematician, surveyor, astronomer, author, printer and bookseller. Despite the loss of the printing business in the Great Fire of 1666, he was contracted to lead a survey of London after the fire. This led him to write his 1693 work Panarithmologia, a comprehensive guide for builders to estimate needed building materials. It remained in print into the 19th century. ESTC R20928; Tomash & Williams L106; Wing L1931.