Guildford Snippets – Do You Know? No.6

Published on: 10 Jun, 2018
Updated on: 10 Jun, 2018

by Nick Bale, Guildford Town Guides

Do the books someone reads reveal something about them? I think it does.

School library books from times past.

For example, a study of the books owned by George Abbot at this death reported that he owned books on political theory, mathematics, witchcraft, but above all on France, many by contemporary authors. They noted this “indicates a breadth of interests some of them unexpected, which reveals his character in a new light”.

For this week’s question, I am putting this idea to the test.

An 18-year-old boy whose family lived in Guildford borrowed the following books from his school library. He is nowadays recognized as a great mathematician. Who was he?

These were the books.

October 1930: A Selection of Photographs of Stars, Star Clusters and Nebulae by Isaac Roberts

November 1930: Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, The Game of Logic by Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll, The Theory of Heat by Thomas Preston

If you know the answer or can add any information to my question, please leave a reply in the box below. I’ll give the answers in a week’s time with the next question.

The answer to last week’s question was France and Spain: Queen Eleanor, wife of King Henry III came from Provence, France; while Queen Eleanor, wife of his son, King Edward I, came from Castile, Spain.

You can find out more about Lewis Carroll and his connections to Guildford on a guided walk starting at Tunsgate Arch at 2.30pm on Tuesday, June 12.

Visit www.guildfordwalks.org.uk for further information.

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