Long out-of-print and almost impossible to find on the used book market, this valuable piece of scholarship is being reissued in an augmented form with introductory remarks, an expanded and updated bibliography, and a commentary on Gauss's mathematical diary, by the eminent British mathematical historian, Jeremy Gray. Also included are personal reminiscences about Dunnington himself, by Fritz-Egbert Dohse, who not only knew Dunnington but also had an interesting connection to Gauss: his great-grandfather, Christian Heinrich Hesemann, was the sculptor whose bust of Gauss is widely known and is pictured in the book.
This biography of Gauss, by far the most comprehensive in English, is the work of a professor of German, G. Waldo Dunnington, who devoted most of his scholarly career to studying the life of Germany's greatest mathematician. The author was inspired to pursue this project at the age of twelve when he learned from his teacher in Missouri that no full biography of Gauss existed at the time. His teacher was Gauss's great granddaughter, Minna Waldeck Gauss.
