"This treatise presents an overview of special functions, focusing primarily on hypergeometric functions and the associated hypergeometric series, including Bessel functions and classical orthogonal polynomials. The basic building block of the functions studied in this book is the gamma function. In addition to relatively new work on gamma and beta functions, such as Selberg's multidimensional integrals, a number of important but relatively unknown nineteenth century results are included."--BOOK JACKET. "The authors provide organizing ideas, motivation, and historical background for the study and application of some important special functions. This work can serve as a learning tool and lasting reference for students and researchers in special functions, mathematical physics, differential equations, mathematical computing, number theory, and combinatorics."--Jacket.