I've handled a fair number of antique math and penmanship notebooks by this point, and so have become increasingly selective about the ones that excite me--and this is one of those. It was kept by a Ralph Churton, of England, and dated 1827 on the inside of the front, hand-marbled cover. Inside, lots of math and lots of beautifully handwritten rules, word problems and more, introduced with lovely ink and watercolor Fraktur style or otherwise flourishy headers. And best of all, toward the back, a gorgeous series of pages dedicated to geometry, with super saturated watercolor shapes and diagrams on each page, to my eye very tempting to carefully remove from the notebook and frame. Plus some naive pencil drawings interspersed with the text on a couple pages, I think likely done by a child at a later date, and a poem or two and some personal notes snuck in here and there. Super lovely.

13" x 8  1/4". 52 pages filled front and back (104 sides.) Ink text is bold throughout if occasionally a bit challenging to decipher the handwriting. Watercolor/gouache color is very rich. There are a handful of pages where a bottom quarter has been cut out (perhaps to pass a note to another student!) and it appears that the final page or two and were torn out. The cover is in good shape and all pages--thick laid paper--remain tightly bound. Flagging to the very lower right corner of the cover and section of pages, pretty minor.