James Stewart received the M.S. degree from Stanford University and the Ph.D. from the University of Toronto. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow at the University of London, he became Professor of Mathematics at McMaster University. His research has been in harmonic analysis and functional analysis. Stewart's books include a series of high school textbooks as well as a best-selling series of calculus textbooks. He is also co-author, with Lothar Redlin and Saleem Watson, of a series of college algebra and precalculus textbooks. Translations of his books include those in Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Korean, Chinese, Greek, and Indonesian.

A talented violinst, Stewart was concertmaster of the McMaster Symphony Orchestra for many years and played professionally in the Hamilton Philharmonic Orchestra. Having explored connections between music and mathematics, Stewart has given more than 20 talks worldwide on Mathematics and Music and is planning to write a book that attempts to explain why mathematicians tend to be musical.

Stewart was named a Fellow of the Fields Institute in 2002 and was awarded an honorary D.Sc. in 2003 by McMaster University. The library of the Fields Institute is named after him. The James Stewart Mathematics Centre was opened in October, 2003, at McMaster University.

This book is a response to those instructors who feel that calculus textbooks are too big. In writing the book James Stewart asked himself:What is essential for a three-semester calculus course for scientists and engineers? Stewart's ESSENTIAL CALCULUS: EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS offers a concise approach to teaching calculus, focusing on major concepts and supporting those with precise definitions, patient explanations, and carefully graded problems. ESSENTIAL CALCULUS: EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS is only 850 pages-two-thirds the size of Stewart's other calculus texts (CALCULUS, Fifth Edition and CALCULUS, EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS, Fifth Edition)-yet it contains almost all of the same topics. The author achieved this relative brevity mainly by condensing the exposition and by putting some of the features on the website www.StewartCalculus.com. Despite the reduced size of the book, there is still a modern flavor: Conceptual understanding and technology are not neglected, though they are not as prominent as in Stewart's other books. ESSENTIAL CALCULUS: EARLY TRANSCENDENTALS has been written with the same attention to detail, eye for innovation, and meticulous accuracy that have made Stewart's textbooks the best-selling calculus texts in the world.