The textbook Geometry, published in French by CEDICjFernand Nathan and
in English by Springer-Verlag (scheduled for 1985) was very favorably
re- ceived. Nevertheless, many readers found the text too concise and
the exercises at the end of each chapter too difficult, and regretted
the absence of any hints for the solution of the exercises. This book is
intended to respond, at least in part, to these needs. The length of the
textbook (which will be referred to as [B] throughout this book) and
the volume of the material covered in it preclude any thought of
publishing an expanded version, but we considered that it might prove
both profitable and amusing to some of our readers to have detailed
solutions to some of the exercises in the textbook. At the same time, we
planned this book to be independent, at least to a certain extent, from
the textbook; thus, we have provided summaries of each of its twenty
chapters, condensing in a few pages and under the same titles the most
important notions and results, used in the solution of the problems. The
statement of the selected problems follows each summary, and they are
numbered in order, with a reference to the corresponding place in [B].
These references are not meant as indications for the solutions of the
problems. In the body of each summary there are frequent references to
[B], and these can be helpful in elaborating a point which is
discussed too cursorily in this book.