Sébastien Antoine Parisot, 1801

PARISOT, Sébastien Antoine (fl 1800). L’art de conjecturer à la loterie ou analyse et solution de toutes les questions les plus curieuses et les plus difficiles de ce jeu; avec des tables de combinaisons et de probabilités... Paris: Bidault, 1801.

First edition of this rare treatise on probability as applied to the lottery and various games of chance. The author is largely unknown but he also wrote another work which expands on the present one, his Traité du calcul conjectural, ou l’art de raissoner sur les chose futures et inconnues (Paris, 1810). These two works were some of the earliest attempts to apply advances in probability theory to a series of practical and social problems. The preface of the present work presents a brief survey of probability theory, discussing Pascal, Fermat, Huygens, the Bernoullis, Montmort, Condorcet, d’Alembert, and in particular the advances made in probability theory by Laplace.

Octavo (212 x 132 mm). Half-title, one-page errata, leaves uncut and partially unopened (a little curling at corners, a couple leaves hastily opened). Plain paper wrappers (a couple minor creases).