The Apprentices

by Leon Garfield

Book Overview

This advanced undergraduate-level introductory textbook first addresses groups, rings, fields and polynomials, then provides coverage of Galois theory and the proof of the unsolvability by radicals of the general equations of degree 5. With many examples, illustrations, commentaries and exercises. Includes 13 appendices. Recommended for teacher education by The American Mathematical Monthly. 1971 edition.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140315950
• ISBN13: 9780140315950
• Release Date: March 1988
• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Age Range: 9 to 12 years
• Grade Range: Grades 4 to 7

Customer Reviews

why's it out of print???

This is probably one of the best books I've ever read. Novels. It's very simple, from the speech to the layout, but it's dealt with so beautifully that even the macabre side isn't disturbing. Set in the sometimes-seamy underworld of the 18th century, it starts with an odd-job boy who becomes apprenticed to a lamplighter after doing the man a favour. Then, as the year goes by, it's woven in with the tales of eleven other apprentices. From the undertaker's daughter on Valentine's Day to the wig maker's assistant charming girls for their hair, there are tales of love, either lost or won, of misery, or just the joy of being alive. Like, when I like a book, it's hard to write about it lucidly, but please believe me -it's wonderful.