Advancing the ‘Analytick Doctrine’: The Making of John Kersey’s Elements of Algebra

Of the three major works on algebraAlgebra written in the EnglishLanguage, English language in the second half of the seventeenth century, that of the London mathematicianLondon, mathematicians John KerseyKersey, John was by far the most successful. Not only was his Elements of AlgebraKersey, Elements, of Algebra reprinted more than four times, appearing well into the next century, but it also came to achieve the status of recommended reading at the twoCambridge, University of English universitiesOxford, University of. However, up to now little has been known about the author or how his book came to achieve the significance it ultimately acquired. Drawing on previously untapped sources, this chapter traces Kersey’s spectacular rise from lowly steward employed by a noble family in BuckinghamshireBuckinghamshire to esteemed mathematics teacherMathematics, teacher and author in the metropolis, and how through his friendship with John CollinsCollins, John he came to write a mathematical work which it was hoped would be able to compete with the best then being published on the continent.