Twelve British Statisticians provides a description of the lives and scientific contributions of a dozen scientific luminaries. Each statistician is a famous figure, but is especially renowned in Great Britain. Their fields of expertise sometimes include disciplines that depart from statistics and display great versatility. The book is accessible to a wide reading audience.

Each of the chapters of the book focuses on the scientific contributions and personal life of a single statistician. Each chapters begins with an overview and contain a rich set of references.

Current textbooks in statistics contain little information about the pioneers in the field. This book provides a historical supplement in courses on quantitative methods in the behavioral, social, and biological disciplines.

The statisticians and some of their contributions covered include:

1. Karl Pearson: product-moment correlation.

2. R.A. Fisher: analysis of variance and covariance, experimental design, common sampling distributions.

3. Charles Spearman: factor analysis, theory of intelligence, mental test theory.

4. Florence Nightingale David: advocate of women's vocational rights in statistics, distinguished educator.

5. George Udny Yule: time series, contingency table analysis.

6. Maurice G. Kendall: generation of and tests for randomness, time series.

7. George E.P. Box: statistical quality control, analysis of time series.

8. William Sealy Gosset ("Student"): small sample statistical techniques, contributions to Neyman-Pearson theory.

9. Egon Sharpe Pearson: Neyman-Pearson theory, history of statistics.

10. Francis Ysidro Edgeworth: polymath mathematical psychics, editor of the Economics Journal.

11. Maurice S. Bartlett: stochastic processes, epidemiology, time series.

12. David Cox: multivariable models including covariates and treatment variables, survival rate.

For author bios, photos, and a sample read, visit bosonbooks.com.