IRVINE/NEWMAN, Lyn (her copy); HARDY, G.H.

A Mathematician's Apology

(Cambridge University Press, 1940)

AN EXCELLENT ASSOCIATION, WITH LINKS TO BLOOMSBURY AND BLETCHLEY

Small 8vo, 126 x 189mm; pp. [8], 93, [1]

A very nice copy of Hardy's classic Apology, being a defence of the purity of mathematics, from the collection of Lyn Newman (née Irvine, 1901–1973), Bloomsbury writer and wife of on the most important pure mathematicians of the twentieth century, Max Newman (1897–1984). Inscribed 'Lyn' to the front free endpaper, with an additional sheet laid in bearing Newman's address and an older inscription, presumably by a relative.

In addition to her own writing, Lyn Newman played an important part in the story of Alan Turing. Her husband Max was Turing's mentor, working closely with him at Cambridge in the 1930s, and at Bletchley Park in the 1940s. Though Newman is famed for his involvement in the development of early electronic digital computers at Bletchley and Manchester, he remained a pure mathematician, seeking 'interesting' problems at Bletchley, and hoping to code computing machines that could solve high-level mathematical problems after the war. No doubt he was familiar with Hardy's essay, and it is likely that Lyn Newman read it in order to understand the motivation behind her husband's work.

Turing – another 'pure' mathematician with a talent for its applications – became close to Lyn and Max, and Lyn was one of only a handful of people present at Turing's funeral in 1954. She also wrote the foreword for Turing's mother Sara's well known biography Alan M. Turing, published in 1959.

Very good condition: salmon-coloured cloth binding slightly worn at the base of the spine, and with a faint mark along the top-edge; internally, clean throughout, binding a little weak at the end of the first gathering; spare spine-label tipped in to the inside rear cover.