The first edition of Robert Recorde's 'The Urinal of Physick' was printed in London, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, by Reynolde Wolfe in 1547. It remained in print for over 130 years, the final edition appearing in 1679 as 'The Judgment of Urines'. The work is an early urological treatise, concerned with the practice of making diagnoses by inspecting the patient's urine. Its pages are full of sensible nursing practice in accordance with the mores of the time and the teachings of classical authors such as Hippocrates, Galen, Avicenna and others. Recorde was a physician at the courts of Henry VIII, Edward VI and Mary I; he was also a very learned scholar and mathematician, a teacher of outstanding ability and a skilful textbook writer. He graduated B.A. from Oxford in 1531 and was subsequently licensed by the university to practice medicine. He received an M.D. degree from Cambridge in 1545, thus entitling him to the honorifics of Doctor and Physician. 'The Urinal of Physick' is dedicated to the Wardens and Company of the Surgeons of London, and Recorde signs the dedication "At my house in London. 8 Novemb. 1547," so he was probably practicing medicine in the city by this date. The book is written in English, rather than scholarly Latin.

The first edition of Robert Recorde's The Grounde of Artes was printed in London, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, by Reynold Wolfe in 1543. The book teaches the rules and operations of arithmetic and provides many simple examples. It was probably intended as a textbook for the rapidly increasing number of mercantile clerks, but also for mariners engaged in the newly important science of celestial navigation. Recorde first shows how to carry out numerical operations using pen and paper, which in his time was a comparatively new and potentially confusing way of performing calculations. He goes on to demonstrate arithmetic done with counters, the centuries-old method of manipulating tokens on a ruled board. Finally, he shows how to indicate numbers with the hands, a system practised by merchants in market halls and on quaysides since antiquity. In a preliminary discussion Recorde defines the art of arithmetic and claims it to be the basis of all learning, not only of geometry and astronomy but also of music, physic, law, grammar, philosophy and even theology - hence the title, The Grounde of Artes. The book is written in the form of a dialogue between a master and a somewhat precocious scholar. Recorde makes an effort to reproduce the speaking voice, within the limits of his didactic purpose, in the question and answer sessions. To the modern reader his prose is delightfully colloquial, if always straight to the point and never unnecessarily chatty. In places he injects statements of principle, for example this warning of the dangers of rote learning: Scholar. Sir, I thank you: but I think I might the better doe it, if you did shew me the working of it. Master. Yea, but you must prove yourself to doe some things without my aid, or else you shall not be able to doe any more than you are taught: And that were rather to learn by wrote (as they call it) than by reason.

The first edition of Robert Recorde's The Pathway to Knowledge was printed in London, at the sign of the Brazen Serpent, by Reynold Wolfe in 1551. This book is the earliest work on geometry in the English language and was used as a standard textbook well into the middle of the seventeenth century. Recorde's prose is delightfully rhythmical and his poetical phrasing perhaps made learning less of a chore than otherwise for his studious readers. That he well knew this book, although modelled after Euclid, was breaking new ground is evidenced by his statement in the preface to the theorems: 'For nother is there anie matter more straunge in the english tongue, than this whereof never booke was written before now, in that tongue, and therefore oughte to delite all them, that desire to understand straunge matters, as most men commonlie doo'. Recorde encountered an unexpected difficulty when setting out to teach Euclidean geometry to English readers. He found that the English language did not (at that time) have a sufficiency of technical terms. But rather than use longstanding Latin or Greek words, he invented his own English equivalents. So for example, obtuse angles are 'blunt corners', an equilateral triangle is a 'threelike' and a square is a 'likeside'. Unfortunately, Recorde's terminology was not taken up and did not survive the passage of time. Hence schoolchildren in geometry lessons today have to wrestle with difficult Latin words like tangent, instead of Recorde's much more homely and easily understood 'touch line'. The mathematical text itself is extremely lucid in both exposition and diagrams, proceeding from a list of definitions through forty-six constructions and seventy-seven theorems. At the start of the definitions is the statement that 'Geometry teacheth the drawyng, measuring and proporcion of figures' and history produced no finer or more eloquent tutor in the subject than Robert Recorde.

The sole edition of Robert Recorde's The Whetstone of Witte was printed at London by John Kingston in 1557. One of Recorde's concerns in this book is to develop not only a means of representing powers of numbers, but also a means of naming them. Prior to the development of a numerical index notation, the names given to the powers was of considerable importance. Hence in these pages we find terminology which is now archaic, for instance the strange word zenzizenzizenzike, the name for the eighth power of a number. It is generally acknowledged that Recorde's treatise on algebra, in the section entitled The arte of cossike numbers, is the first to be printed in the English language. Although this work owes much to the German mathematicians Christoff Rudolff and Michael Stifel, it does have one well known claim to originality; the first use of two parallel lines as the sign for equality (because noe 2 thyngs, can be moare equalle). Recorde's invention of the equals sign =, together with his adoption of the + sign (which betokeneth more) and the minus sign - (which betokeneth less) placed him at the very forefront of European practice. Like most of Recorde's books, The Whetstone is written in the form of a dialogue between a learned master and a clever, but rather precocious, scholar. After being patiently encouraged through the seconde parte of arithmetic (begun by the scholar in Recorde's first book, The Grounde of Artes) followed by the extraction of rootes, the scholar remarks 'I am moche bounde unto you ... Trusting so to applie my studie, and emploie my knowlege, that it shall never repente you of your curtesie in this behalfe'. To which the master, about to start an exposition on the difficult and strange cossike arte (algebra), replies 'Then marke well my words, and you shall perceive, that I will use as moche plainesse, as I maie, in teaching: And therefore will beginne with cossick numbers first'. Here Recorde is again using terminology that is now archaic. In his day algebra was called the cossic art, derived from the Latin cosa, meaning 'thing'. The Whetstone also includes a lengthy treatise on the arte of surde nombers, that is, on irrational numbers.

The first edition of Robert Recorde's The Castle of Knowledge was printed at London by Reginalde Wolfe in 1556. The work is a treatise on the celestial sphere, written in the form of a dialogue between a master and a scholar. It is an original and exhaustive study intended to modernise Proclus and Sacrobosco. It deals chiefly with Ptolemaic astronomy but also includes some geographical information as understood in Recorde's time. In the preface to the reader he extols the heavens as God's handiwork and consequently meet for study. He also praises the rare wisdom and practical knowledge that astronomy bestows, thereby soliciting approval of both the old heaven and the new earth. Recorde's writings reflect the strong traditions which he, in common with most educated people of his time, found difficult to discard. These Aristotelian and Ptolemaic traditions postulated that the sub-lunary realm, the seat of the base elements, was subject to change and corruption; in contrast, the heavenly or celestial realm was necessarily pure, immutable and eternal. However, in this book Recorde provides the English reading public with the first significant reference to the heliocentric theories of Nicholas Copernicus. In the guise of the master he briefly mentions the theories to his scholar, explaining that according to Copernicus the sun is at the centre of the world and not the earth, and that the earth moves. This elicits the response from the scholar: 'I desire not to heare such vaine phantasies, so farre against common reason... and therefore lette it passe for ever, and a daye longer'. At which the master reacts by admonishing him, telling him that he was 'to yonge to be a good iudge in so greate a matter: it passeth farre your learning... therefore you were best to condemne no thinge that you do not well vnderstand'. The Castle of Knowledge was reprinted in 1596, forty years after the first edition, by which time it was already outdated by later works on Copernican astronomy.