Astronomy & Cosmology
(Landsberg, Peter) Hawking, Stephen W. | A Brief History of Time
£350.00
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First edition, the corrected second printing of this landmark popular work on the quest for the Grand Unified Theory. From the library of physicist Peter Landsberg, with his ownership signature, notes and highlighting, and letter to him loosely inserted.
Peter Landsberg (1922-2010), was a German Jewish refugee to Britain who earned his PhD in quantum mechanics at Imperial College London in 1949 and joined the faculties of the Universities of Cardiff and Southampton. “Landsberg was not solely interested in one branch of physics, he was interested in physics in general and this boyish enthusiasm took his research to all areas of theoretical work”, among them the quantum phenomenon known as bose condensation, the relationship between quantum mechanics and living things, thermodynamics, cosmology, and applications of solar energy. He is best known for his explication of “Landsberg efficiency”, the theoretical limits on how much solar power can be converted to electricity in a given situation (obituary in The Scotsman, May 23, 2010).
Landsberg has made numerous short notes — often page number references — and underlined a number of passages, primarily in chapters 8: The Origin and Fate of the Universe and 9: The Arrow of Time, that deal with thermodynamics and the inflationary model of the universe. Loosely inserted is a typed letter signed to Landsberg from Canon Robert Winnett (1910-1989), to whom the book had been loaned, and who writes that it conveyed to him “a sense of the infinite mystery of the universe, and of unplumbed depths still to be explored, an attitude which is surely akin to the religious”. He goes on the discuss how scientific ideas about the origin of the universe might align with Christianity and other religions, ending with the thought that “we are dealing with probabilities rather than certainties... The origins of religion lie in dimensions of human experience other than the scientific, and any cosmological theory can be interpreted theistically, or if we will, atheistically”.
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...From the Big Bang to Black Holes. Introduction by Carl Sagan. Illustrations by Ron Miller. New York: Bantam Books, 1988.
Octavo. Original black quarter cloth, dark grey boards, title to spine in silver, Hawking’s monogram to upper board in blind. With the dust jacket. Illustrations throughout the text. Binding a little rubbed and bumped. A very good copy in the rubbed and creased jacket with some bubbling of the plastic coating, especially along folds.
Bigelow, Frank H. | Balloon Ascensions
£750.00
- A substantial, 196-page manuscript of measurements obtained during meterological balloon flights in South America, Europe, Africa, and the United States between 1906 and 1911 (the title gives a date range of 1911-1913, but there do not seem to be any entries after 1911).
The compiler of this manuscript, meteorologist and astronomer Frank H. Bigelow (1851-1924), grew up in Concord, Massachusetts and was educated at the Episcopal Theological School in nearby Cambridge. During the 1870s and 80s he served two stints as assistant astronomer at the Argentine National Observatory at Cordoba, where many of these measurements were made, and also worked as a professor of mathematics at Racine College, as assistant in the National Almanac Office in Washington D. C., and as a professor of meteorology at the National Weather Bureau.
Neatly written on graph paper, each entry in this manuscript is laid out as a grid with the columns headed by elevations. The rows are labelled with a variety of mathematical formula that often relate to each other as they descend the page, “T₁ - T₀” followed by “log T₁ - T₀”, or “T” followed by “log T” then “Log T₁ - T₀” and “Log (Log T₁ - T₀)”. There are also rows where work is presumably checked (check) and various rows are added together (summ). Unfortunately, we cannot locate a guide to the symbols used here, making it difficult to determine exactly what Bigelow was studying. Prose notes occasionally appear, however, and seem to indicate that his measurements were connected with heat and possibly solar activity. “Since z increases upwards the (-) sign indicates loss of heat energy from level to level outwards... The evidence is strongly against the theory that absorption is proportional to the density or path length...” “The assumed (E₁ - E₀) solar near surface seems to require special modification because the p values are impossible...”.
As well as meteorology, Bigelow studied the solar corona, aurora, and terrestrial magnetism, and it may be in pursuit of these subjects that the present ascensions were made. It is also unclear whether Bigelow or a colleague actually went up in the balloons, or whether they were uncrewed weather balloons which had first been used in the late 1890s by the French meteorologist Léon Teisserenc de Bort. We suspect the former, as results are given for multiple elevations during each flight. Unusually, within the manuscript the flights are bound entirely out of date order, and it’s unclear whether this was an accident or a way to highlight or connect certain results. This manuscript would benefit from attention by an informed cataloguer or scholar, in connection with similar materials....Cordoba - Argentina 1911 - 1913. Europe and United States. 1906-1911.
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Folio (352 x 215 mm), single leaves oversewn in sections onto sawn-in cords. 196 page manuscript in black and red ink and pencil, rectos only. Leaves numbered in blue crayon. Contemporary quarter black skiver, black pebble-grain cloth, titles to spine gilt, marbled endpapers, graph paper leaves. Spine professionally relined and reattached to text block by Bainbridge Conservation, binding rubbed and worn, particularly along the spine, endpapers and blanks tanned, contents a little toned, a few contemporary ink blotches. Very good condition.
Carrington, Richard Christopher | Observations of the Spots on the Sun
Sold Out
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First edition of Carrington’s landmark study of sunspots. Attractively bound in blue quarter morocco and uncommon in commerce, with only one copy in recent auction records (Christies 2009).
Carrington was one of the last of the great amateur scientists, using family wealth to build his observatory at Redhill in the early 1850s. It was while construction was underway that he studied the Royal Astronomical Society’s collection of sun drawings, and was “struck by the capricious way in which the subject had been taken up, and then laid aside... Like many others, Carrington had been impressed by Schwabe's remarkable series of 9000 observations... which had revealed a regular variation in the number of spots on a cycle of ten or eleven years. Carrington determined that, alongside nocturnal observations of the circumpolar stars, he would observe the sun by day... He and [his assistant] Simmons commenced this arduous double schedule in November 1853, planning to include the complete sunspot cycle, which would commence with the minimum which was expected in 1855” (ODNB). Over seven years Carrington and Simmons observed 5,290 sunspots, and the results published here “determined the positions of the sun’s axis with unprecedented accuracy and established the important empirical laws of sunspot distribution and the variation in solar rotation as functions of the heliocentric latitude, which served to revolutionize ideas of solar physics just as effectively as the results of spectrum analysis” (Norman Library of Science and Medicine 407).
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...from November 9, 1853, to March 24, 1861, made at Redhill. Illustrated by 166 Plates. London & Edinburgh: Williams & Norgate, 1863.
Quarto (380 x 239 mm). Late 19th or early-20th century blue quarter morocco, double rules along raised bands and floral roll to the ends of the spine gilt, blue cloth sides, edges of text block marbled. 167 lithographic plates (numbered to 166, with 102A and 102B), which which 3 are folding. Endpapers renewed. Blind stamp of the Wigan free public library to the title, with inked and pencilled numbers to the verso. Corners of boards worn, minor crease and a couple of short closed tears affecting the margin of the front endpapers, the title, and leaf B1, occasional light spots to contents. Very good condition.
Clerke, Agnes M. | The Herschels and Modern Astronomy
£250.00
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First edition of this biographical work on the astronomers William, Caroline, and John Herschel by one of the “great popularisers of science of the Victorian period” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science, p. 270). Copies of The Herschels and Modern Astronomy are uncommon on the market, particularly in such a nice example of the publisher’s binding.
Agnes Mary Clerke was taught at home by her scholarly parents, and “by the age of eleven she had mastered Herschel’s Outlines of Astronomy” (Ogilvie, p. 270). Settling in London in 1877, she pursued a career as a writer, producing a remarkable body of work. Clerke “possessed the rare ability to communicate clearly the complexities of scientific theory to a popular audience, while synthesising masses of astronomical information into a coherent whole for professional scientists, who had become so specialised that they could not see the larger connection between their work and other current discoveries in astronomy” (Ogilvie p. 270). Though she never held a position at a university or observatory, Clerke gained “partial admission” to the male-dominated word of astronomy. She had an extensive correspondence with other astronomers, was awarded the Actonian Prize by the Royal Institution, and in 1903 was elected an honorary member of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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New York: Macmillan & Co., 1895.
Octavo. Original green cloth, titles to spine and upper board gilt. Portrait frontispiece and 2 plates. Tiny bump to the edge of the upper board, very lightly rubbed at the tips, and what may be a tiny spot of dampstain affecting the extreme corner of the lower panel, light spotting to the edges of the text blocks and occasionally the contents. Very good condition, the cloth fresh.
Harrison, Stephen | Emanational Physics. A New Theoretical Prolegomenon
£650.00
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The “second edition” of this rare and unusual self-published text proposing to correct the entire field of modern physics by reframing it metaphysically. Described as a “not-for-sale” edition “limited to 100 copies”, this copy was sent to Allan R. Sandage, the astronomer who determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble Constant and the age of the universe and was considered “the greatest and most influential observational astronomer of the last half-century” (NY Times obituary, November 17, 2010). Sandage’s name appears twice on the recipients list in the front matter (once as no. 2 on the list, and then misspelled on a taped and glued-on addition) and an introductory letter from the author to Sandage, dated 1993, is loosely inserted.
We have been unable to locate much information on the author, Stephen Harrison. The biography on the verso of the dedication leaf describes him as “a science graduate of London University” and “now an American citizen” who is “currently an independent consultant in the ‘High Technology’ field in the Washington D. C. area”. His business card describes him as the “principal scientist” for Directed Technologies, Inc. of Bethesda Maryland, of which we can find no record. The printed address on the card is for a suburban house, and it has been crossed out and corrected with another address for an apartment complex about a mile away. Surprisingly, Harrison has a Linkedin profile, though it is empty except for his title, “independent computer software professional, Bethesda Maryland” and his education history: “London University 1938-1948”. There is no “London University” (at least not since 1836), and it is unclear whether this is entirely fictitious, or if he meant one of the real institutions with a similar name. And while the dates seem questionable, as they put him in his late 80s when Linkedin was founded, an obituary confirming his age appeared in the Washington Post on March 16th, 2016: “Stephen Harrison, philosopher, author of The New Monadology, died peacefully March 12, 2016 at age 96 with his daughters Barbara Harrison and Frances Stroscio by his side”.
In the prefatory matter Harrison also lists three other books he has written: “The Mind/Brain Problem, copyright 1981/1982/1984/1986”, “Artificial Intelligence: A House Built Upon the Sand, 1984”, and “The New Monadology (forthcoming)”. We can locate no institutional copies of Emanational Physics, and only one institutional copy of any of the other books: The New Monadology, at Perdue University, though the copyright date provided in WorldCat is 1981, which would be significantly earlier than indicated by the information here.
This copy seems have been mailed to Sandage a few years after “publication”, as the enclosed letter is dated May 29th, 1993 (as Sandage’s name appears twice in the recipients list, it may have been sent twice). Harrison writes, “I believe you will enjoy some of the chapters of the enclosed, though I fear you must end up dismissing me as a good man gone wrong. One of my complaints with modern cosmology is the way in which they proceed sui generis in the absence of the broader considerations of Mind and Spirituality — which are, so to speak, brought in as afterthoughts, rather than being given equal weight at the outset. Also, the failure to distinguish between Eternity and Endless Time; and between the Potential and the Completed Infinity. Finitude and Temporality, surely, belong in the realm of physical existence, with Infinity and Eternity providing the necessary context beyond.”
The contents of this volume are difficult to describe, but comprise an elaborate, conservative-leaning pseudo-scientific/philosophical critique of modern physics and cosmology, primarily relativity, quantum mechanics, positivism, and materialist understandings of human consciousness. As Harrison writes in the preface, “It is no secret that the state of theoretical physics & cosmology is replete with contradictions and paradoxes. It’s a mess — and, according to such Establishment spokesmen as Richard Feynman, there’s not much we can do about it. Nature is ‘absurd’ and we have no choice but to accept the fact with as good a grace as we are able to muster. I don’t believe it... What’s wrong with physics takes origin, in my view, from what’s wrong with physicists. What is chiefly wrong with physicists is that they are metaphysically light-weight... this handicap of philosophical myopia is canonised into the virtue of emancipation; they believe that the findings and discoveries of physics have somehow pre-empted metaphysics — which may now be discarded as so much useless baggage — and that empiricism has somehow proved itself to be completely self-contained and self-sufficient.”
Not surprisingly, he goes on to explain that, “undaunted by my limited grasp of modern physics, I decided to blunder in, and try my hand at clearing up the mess. What are my credentials? First, I am familiar with the basics and have enough understanding of mathematics to be able to protect myself from the occasional abuses of mathematicians. I have spent much of my life as a consultant in various areas of ‘hard’ science and engineering, and my experience in this occupation has caused me to become monumentally unimpressed by and suspicious of ‘experts’; one thing in which many of them are truly expert in is seeing the trees and missing the woods”.
The text itself is dense and complex, with numerous citations and illustrations, a few of which are coloured in by hand. It begins with an introduction to some of the mysteries and paradoxes of modern physics and a historical outline of “how we got into the present mess”, as well as chapters titled “Ad Hominem: The Intellectual Scrutinized” and “The Decay of Common Sense”. Harrison’s solution to these problems, a system he terms “emanational physics” involves building blocks called “corpuscles” and “reintroducing the Aether” to theory, and it covers the mind, the fabric of the universe, and his conceptualisation of the origin and end of the universe — what he calls the Alpha and Omega.
In the preface, Harrison explains that this second edition has appeared only six months after the first, “chiefly as a result of my very recent discovery of literature sources critical of relativity. At the same time I learned why I had to dig so deep to find this material; it seems it is not easy to publish material contrary to the Establishment Doctrine... In reviewing this material I cannot help but conclude that the case against special relativity is about as solid as can be... I am even tempted to say that it is the most disconfirmed hypothesis since the Phlogiston Theory. Yet it retains its firm occupancy of Stage Center”.
Among the 90 recipients of this text (who must have been thrilled) are mathematician Roger Penrose, AI and information theorist Kenneth M. Sayre, and physicists Murray Gell-Mann, Steven Weinberg, Stephen Hawking, Freeman Dyson, John Archibald Wheeler, James Hartle, and Sheldon Glashow (among many others). A number of non-scientists are also included, such as the conservative political philosopher Paul Gottfried, Scottish Protestant theologian Thomas F. Torrance, Benedictine historian of science Stanley Jaki, and religious philosopher Richard Swinbourne.
Most remarkably, at least a few of them engaged somewhat seriously with Harrison’s text. In the preface he thanks “a number of readers who sent in their comments in response to the original edition — spanning various degrees of agreement and disagreement; several of them brought an important error to my attention (concerning the astronaut round-trip paradox)”. Mathematician Joseph Gerver is specially praised for “his very detailed commentary on a number of points”. And not only did neuroscientist and philosopher Raymond Tallis read Emanational Physics, he cited it in his 1991 book on consciousness, The Explicit Animal. Harrison had used a quotation he attributed to physicist David Bohm, and Tallis includes it in The Explicit Animal, with a footnote reading, “I do not know the original provenance of this passage. It is cited by Stephen Harrison in his remarkable unpublished manuscript Emanational Physics”. The same passage is then used by philosopher Mary Midgley in her book The Ethical Primate, with a footnote referring to Tallis and Harrison: “Tallis says no further details are given. The passage seems, however, to express Bohm’s habitual views and does not in any way appear suspect”.
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...Second Edition. Bethesda, Maryland: privately published, 1988.
Comb-bound photocopy, text on both the rectos and versos. Title on yellow paper. Original brown paper covers, the upper cover with a plastic window for the title and “BK Dynamics” embossed in gold. The author’s Directed Technologies business card, with the address corrected by hand, is stapled to the upper cover. Illustrations, charts and graphs throughout, one coloured by hand. The author’s name and address in pencil partially erased from the title. Occasional additions and corrections made by taping or pasting in new slips of paper.
Jeans, James | The Stars in Their Courses
£150.00
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First edition, first impression. Rare in the jacket and much less common than the US edition published by Macmillan in the same year. This copy with the bookplate of Edward Beldam Diver, London manager of the Cambridge University Press (The Historical Register of the University of Cambridge. Supplement, 1921-1930).
Author James Jeans (1877-1946) was a respected Cambridge mathematician and astronomer, best known for his work on rotating, gravitational bodies, "a problem of fundamental importance that had already been tackled by some of the leading mathematicians" (ODNB), and the motions, structures, and life-cycles of stars and stellar clusters.
"In 1928 Jeans's academic work Astronomy and Cosmogony came to the attention of S. C. Roberts, the secretary of Cambridge University Press, who appreciated the general interest of its subject matter and the attraction of Jeans's writing style. He persuaded Jeans to write a popular account, The Universe Around Us, which was published by the press in 1929" (ODNB). Jeans' popularity as a writer "depended partly on his topic — new, thought provoking views of the universe — and partly on his style, which combined an authoritative knowledge of the subject with a vivid turn of phrase" (ODNB).
The present volume was his third popular work, with the dust jacket prominently advertising the previous two. It is based on a series of radio broadcasts written for listeners with no previous scientific knowledge, and with the hope of introducing them to “the fascination of modern astronomy” and “the wonder of the universe we see through the giant telescopes of to-day” (preface).
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Cambridge: at the University Press, 1931.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Black and white frontispiece and 46 plates, 2 folding astronomical charts. Contemporary bookplate of Edward Beldam Diver. Spine very slightly faded, cloth a little rubbed at the tips. A very good copy in the rubbed and creased jacket with tanned spine panel and some nicks and small chips.
Lovell, Alfred Charles Bernard, Sir. | Archive of correspondence with astronomer Arthur Beer
£650.00
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An interesting archive of unpublished correspondence between leading radio astronomer Alfred Lovell (1913-2012) and astronomer and science populariser Arthur Beer.
Beer (1900-1980) was born in Richenberg, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia), and educated in Austria and Germany. He worked as an astronomer at Breslau University, where he studied binary stars, and at the German Maritime Observatory. He also wrote newspaper columns and was responsible for developing one of the first scientific radio programmes, Aus Natur und Technik. Beer escaped from Germany in 1934, assisted by Einstein, who wrote him a public letter of recommendation, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He worked at the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory and at the Kew Observatory, and became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Beer’s most significant contribution to science was as the founding editor of Vistas in Astronomy, a “voluminous and thorough survey of present-day astronomy” in two volumes, conceived as a Festschrift celebrating the 70th birthday of astrophysicist Frederick J. M. Stratton, under whom he had served in Cambridge. The resulting volumes were so impressive that it was continued first as an annual book and then a quarterly journal.
Beer’s correspondent, the astronomer Alfred Lovell, became interested in radar astronomy while working on British military radar projects during the Second World War and seeing unexplained atmospheric phenomena on radar displays. After the war he set up the first radio telescopes at the University of Manchester, establishing his base at Jodrell Bank in Cheshire. His first major success was in using decommissioned military equipment to determine that the radar echoes he’d seen during the war were caused by meteors. In 1950 he convinced the university to fund a large, custom-designed radar telescope, the Mark I, which was finished just in time to track Sputnik and its launch rocket in 1957. “The technical achievement was acclaimed as a national triumph with defence significance–the rocket was essentially an intercontinental ballistic missile, and no other radar system in the world could detect it. The telescope became a national icon, as well as an emblem of the University of Manchester” (ODNB). He continued his work with telescopes Mark 2 and 3, making observations of a variety of astronomical events and bodies, including US and Soviet lunar probes, and later served as a government administrator for large telescope projects. His work was recognised with the award of the royal medal of the Royal Society in 1960, a knighted the following year, and the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1981.
This file contains correspondence between Beer and Lovell from the initial conception of the Vistas project in early 1952 through the final stages of printing in December, 1954. Lovell opens with a formal request for papers on February 27th, 1952, and Lovell responds on March 7th, “Thank you for your letter... conveying the invitation to contribute to Professor Stratton’s commemoration volume. I shall be very glad to help with this. It is rather difficult to make suggestions about the nature of the contribution until I know what other radio astronomers might be contributing. For example, the nature of any contributions from the Radio School in Cambridge would obviously influence my own contribution great deal. My provisional answer is, therefore, that I will write about radio astronomy, the exact aspect depending upon what other contributions in this field you are expecting to get. Perhaps you will let me know about this in due course.”
On Mach 5th Beer writes that, “The arrangement of the book has made very good progress in the meantime, and you will be pleased to hear that all essential fields appear to be covered by their leading experts. The main sections will be: - Astronomical Vistas, Dynamical Astronomy... Each section has a number of contributors fro various countries; our latest acquisition was the director of the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories... At present the negotiations with publishers are my main preoccupation. For this purpose I am now preparing a provisional list of contributors and suggested titles... Apart from yourself I have only approached two others from your field, namely Ratcliffe and Ryle... Ryle wanted to communicate with you directly as to the question of how to share the radio-astronomical heavens. If you would care to state which part you would like to take over, I shall be delighted to make the necessary arrangements.” Later, in November, he writes to say that he can include a second article by Lovell and wonders if this might also include a drawing or plan of the proposed Mark I telescope. On December 5th Lovell responds, “Thank you for your letter of November 29th, which we discussed when I met you on Wednesday. Subsequently I was able to talk to Ryle and the position now seems quite clear. I shall do my best to let you have two articles from Jodrell Bank - one on Meteors and the other on Pencil Beam Techniques in radio Astronomy, including the new Radio Telescope.”
Additional correspondence follows, primarily related to the forwarding of the articles and illustrations, proofing, and progress with the publishers, with one notable letter from Lovell reading, “I must say that the method used by Pergamon press is excessively irritating and I have never in the whole of my experience had to waste so much time owing to the fact that the proofs and the diagrams have come in bits and pieces over periods of many months. You must be having an awful job on this!”
The two pieces submitted by Lovell were “Large Radio Telescopes and Their Use in Radio Astronomy” (co-authord by R. Hanbury Brown) and “Radio Echo Studies of Meteors” (with J. G. Davies). Of the 16 typed letters signed by Lovell, one has had the signature clipped out to be reproduced in Vistas, and also included in the file is a short autograph note from Lovell’s collaborator R. Hanbury Brown providing a signature as well. There is also a further typed note by Lovell indicating that he wants to approach Lovell for a piece on tracking Sputnik, presumably for a later issue of Vistas, but there is no related correspondence.
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...during the production of Vistas in Astronomy. Manchester, 1952-1956.
Including 16 typed letters signed (one with the signature clipped out for reproduction in Vistas in Astronomy) and 1 autograph letter signed by Lovell, together with yellow carbons of Beer’s typed letters, bound together with green string with metal caps in Beer’s tan folder with the name Lovell in ink on the cover. Rust stains to the top three documents and the lower document from the metal caps on the binding string, not affecting the Lovell letters. Occasional mild creasing, otherwise the contents fresh and in excellent condition.
Smyth, Charles Piazzi | The Great Comet of 1843 as seen at the Cape of Good Hope...
£2,750.00
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A rare and evocative lithograph of the Great Comet of 1843 as seen from the Cape of Good Hope, observed and, most unusually, also lithographed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900). Copies of this print are exceptionally scarce, with none recorded in COPAC, WorldCat, or auction records. Given that the paper was never published, it seems unlikely that more than a handful were produced.
Smyth was born to well-connected British parents in Naples, his father being a naval officer and respected amateur astronomer, and his mother the daughter of the British Consul to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Smyth’s godfather was the famous Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, from whom he received his middle name. Thanks to his father’s connections, at age sixteen Smyth was made assistant to Thomas Maclear, HM Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. “He spent ten years in southern Africa working in positional astronomy and in arduous geodetic surveys of the province. Encouraged by John Herschel, he experimented in early photography and in 1843 succeeded in producing the oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in southern Africa” (ODNB).
During Smyth’s time in the Cape a remarkable comet appeared in the skies. “The Great March Comet of 1843 was so bright that it was seen in the daytime sky by many people on every continent”, though its brightest and largest appearance was in the southern hemisphere (Stoyan, Atlas of Great Comets). Its tail, measuring up to 70° (more than 350 million kilometers in length), still holds the record for length, and John Herschel described it in 1849 as “by far the most remarkable comet of the century” (Stoyan).
Smyth was a talented amateur artist who frequently painted and sketched, both in connection with his astronomical work and as an observer of the people and landscapes around him. “The naturalistic representations and watercolours by Chales Piazzi Smyth, who was working at the Cape of Good Hope when the comet appeared, are the most impressive reproductions of this apparition of a comet” (Stoyan). Smyth was particularly interested in printing techniques and their applications to scientific illustration. His first major published work was a paper submitted to the Royal Astronomical Society on this subject, in which he “reviews critically the illustrations in several recent publications and discourses with apparent authority on the processes of engraving, aquatintintg and mezzotinting. He suggests modifications that might be used to yield more subtle effects” (Warner, Charles Pizaai Smyth: Astronomer-Artist, His Cape Years, p. 113).
Smyth’s proficiency with lithography and copperplate engraving allowed him to print the illustrations for his own papers, a practice that was (and indeed, still is) unusual (Warner, p. 113). In 1846 he was appointed Astronomer Royal at Edinburgh, “the hub of the printing and illustration industry... in these circumstances he did not need to acquire a press, but bought or hired stones on which he could draw his pictures and then send the stones to the nearest printer. Piazzi was engaged in lithographing of his sketches ‘The Zodiacal Light as Seen at the Cape of Good Hope’ and ‘The Great Comet of 1843’ —to be used in his published accounts— when [his friend from South Africa, the artist] Charles Bell arrived in 1847”. At first, Piazzi sent his stones to the printer W. Walton, who was probably responsible for this print, but later Bell purchased a press which he and Piazzi shared (Warner, pp. 114-115).
Both The Great Comet and The Zodiacal Light were meant to illustrate Smyth’s unpublished paper “Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light”, which was completed on March 25th, 1848, received by the Royal Society on the 13th of April, and withdrawn on the 2nd of November. The manuscript and the original painting are still at the Royal Society and have been digitised (references AP/30/18 and AP/30/18/5), and two oil paintings of the comet by Smyth are held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich (object ID BHC4148 and BHC4147). This copy of the lithograph is especially intriguing because of the pencilled annotation where Smith’s printed initials should be: “CPS del[iniavit] & lit”, indicating that he made the lithograph himself. Though the writing is dissimilar to Smyth’s formal hand, the likeliest explanation is that it was inserted by himself or someone close to him.
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...in the Evening of March 3rd. [Edinburgh], June 1848.
Lithograph (print 115 x 182 mm; sheet 277 x 384 mm). Conservation mounted, framed and glazed using archival materials. Professionally cleaned using archival methods but with some faint spots remaining, short closed tear at the right edge archivally repaired. Excellent condition.
Smyth, Charles Piazzi | The Zodiacal Light as Seen on the Breede River at the Cape of Good Hope...
£2,750.00
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A rare and evocative lithograph of the zodiacal light as seen from the Breede River in South Africa, observed and, most unusually, lithographed by the Astronomer Royal for Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smyth (1819-1900). Smyth’s print was “the first attempt to furnish a realistic depiction of this elusive feature” of the night sky (Warner, Charles Pizaai Smyth: Astronomer-Artist, His Cape Years, p. 101). Copies of this lithograph are exceptionally scarce. We can locate only one, in the Herschel family collection at the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich (object ID PAH6023). Searches of COPAC, WorldCat, and auction records trace no others. Given that the paper they were designed to illustrate was never published, it seems unlikely that more than a handful were ever produced.
Smyth was born to well-connected British parents in Naples, his father being a naval officer and respected amateur astronomer, and his mother the daughter of the British Consul to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Smyth’s godfather was the famous Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi, from whom he received his middle name. Thanks to his father’s connections, at age sixteen Smyth was made assistant to Thomas Maclear, HM Astronomer at the Royal Observatory, Cape of Good Hope. “He spent ten years in southern Africa working in positional astronomy and in arduous geodetic surveys of the province. Encouraged by John Herschel, he experimented in early photography and in 1843 succeeded in producing the oldest known calotypes of people and scenes in southern Africa” (ODNB). It was during this period that Smyth attempted observations of the zodiacal light. This is the glow, also known as the false dawn, which appears along the ecliptic at twilight and just before sunrise, and is caused by light from the sun reflecting off interplanetary dust.
In addition to photography, Smyth was a talented amateur artist who frequently painted and sketched, both in connection with his astronomical work and as an observer of the people and landscapes around him. His depictions of the Great Comet of 1843 are now considered “the most impressive” illustrations of that apparition (Stoyan, Atlas of Great Comets). Smyth was particularly interested in printing techniques and their applications to scientific illustration. His first major published work was a paper submitted to the Royal Astronomical Society on this subject, in which he “reviews critically the illustrations in several recent publications and discourses with apparent authority on the processes of engraving, aquatintintg and mezzotinting. He suggests modifications that might be used to yield more subtle effects” (Warner, p. 113).
Smyth’s proficiency with lithography and copperplate engraving allowed him to print the illustrations for his own papers, a practice that was (and indeed, still is) unusual (Warner, p. 113). In 1846 he was appointed Astronomer Royal at Edinburgh, “the hub of the printing and illustration industry... in these circumstances he did not need to acquire a press, but bought or hired stones on which he could draw his pictures and then send the stones to the nearest printer. Piazzi was engaged in lithographing of his sketches ‘The Zodiacal Light as Seen at the Cape of Good Hope’ and ‘The Great Comet of 1843’ —to be used in his published accounts— when [his friend from South Africa, the artist] Charles Bell arrived in 1847”. At first, Piazzi sent his stones to the printer W. Walton, who was probably responsible for this print, but later Bell purchased a press which he and Piazzi shared (Warner, pp. 114-115).
Both The Zodiacial Light and Great Comet were meant to illustrate Smyth’s unpublished paper “Attempt to apply instrumental measurement to the zodiacal light”, which was completed on March 25th, 1848, received by the Royal Society on the 13th of April, and withdrawn on the 2nd of November. The manuscript and the original painting are still at the Royal Society and have been digitised (references AP/30/18 and AP/30/18/7). This copy of the lithograph is especially intriguing because of the pencilled annotation next to Smith’s printed initials, “del[iniavit] & lit”, indicating that Smyth made the lithograph himself. Though the writing is dissimilar to Smyth’s formal hand, the likeliest explanation is that it was inserted by himself or someone close to him. This annotation does not appear in the NMM copy.
The zodiacal light continued to be an interest of Smyth’s throughout his career, particularly in the 1870s when he turned his attention to “spectroscopy and the ‘new astronomy’, a term used to denote the area of astronomy later known as astrophysics... One of his aims, successfully carried out, was to discriminate in the sun's spectrum between absorption lines of purely solar origin and those produced in the earth's atmosphere. Among other researches were studies of the spectra of the aurora (observed from Edinburgh), the zodiacal light (observed from Palermo), and the so-called rainband, due to atmospheric water vapour. In the laboratory he concentrated on the spectra of diatomic molecules and, in collaboration with Alexander Stewart Herschel, deciphered the harmonic structure of the green carbon monoxide band” (ODNB).
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...June 1844. [Edinburgh], June 1848.
Lithograph (print 190 x 264 mm; sheet 277 x 384 mm). Professionally mounted, framed and glazed using archival materials. The printed captions have been amended in pencil, in a contemporary hand, to record that the prints were “del & lith” - drawn and lithographed - by “CPS”. Professionally cleaned using archival methods but with some faint spots remaining, some light creasing and four short closed tears at the bottom edge of the sheet which have been archivally repaired, another short closed tear at the upper edge with the same treatment, none affecting the image. Miniscule pinprick at the top left and lower right corners of the lithograph Very good condition.
Strömberg, Gustaf | The Soul of the Universe
£200.00
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First edition, first printing. Presentation copy inscribed on the front free endpaper, first from the author to astronomer Frank E. Ross: “With best wishes from Gustaf Stromberg, April, 1940”. Later, on June 1, 1954, Ross inscribed the book for “Dr. A. R. Sandage, Comps of F. E. Ross”. The second recipient, Allan R. Sandage, was the astronomer who determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble Constant and the age of the universe and was considered “the greatest and most influential observational astronomer of the last half-century” (NY Times obituary, November 17, 2010).
Author Gustaf Stromberg (1882-1962) was an astronomer at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California who specialised in the luminosity of long-period variable stars and on stellar motions and their implications for the movements of galaxies and nebulae. He also became interested in psychic and paranormal phenomena, and published his pseudoscientific theories about the spiritual aspects of matter and the soul’s immortality in the present volume.
Frank E. Ross (1874-1960) earned his doctorate in 1901 at the University of California, then served as director of the International Latitude Observatory station in Gaithersburg, Maryland, as a physicist at Eastman Kodak, and finally as an astronomer at the Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. Among his important contributions were the design of wide-angle lenses for astronomical photography; solving problems with photographic emulsions that had caused distortion in astronomical photographs; the discovery of many new variable and high-motions stars; the delineation of the large-scale structures of the northern Milky Way using the lens he developed; and important investigations of the surfaces of Mars and Venus (Morgan, National Academy of Sciences biographical sketch, 1967).
Allan R. Sandage (1926-2010) completed his physics degree at the University of Illinois in 1948, then became a graduate student at Caltech, where he “learned the nuts and bolts of observing with big telescopes [at the Mount Wilson Observatory] from the founders of modern cosmology, Hubble; Walter Baade, who became his thesis adviser, and Milton Humason, a former mule driver who had become Hubble’s right-hand man” (NY Times). “For his doctoral thesis he studied the stars in the globular cluster Messier 3 and the RR Lyrae variable stars it contains. Refinements in the accuracy of the distances to variable stars became a recurring theme of his work, as these were the first step in determining the ladder of distances through which the true scale of the universe was measured” (Guardian obituary, December 9, 2010).
Sandage’s first major contribution was the 1961 paper, “The Ability of the 200-inch Telescope to Discriminate Between Selected World Models”, which “may well have been ‘the most influential paper ever written in any field even close to cosmology’... It was to set the direction of observational cosmology for 40 years, ruling out the Steady State and the Big Crunch and culminating in the surprise discovery in 1998 that the expansion is not slowing down at all but speeding up” (NY Times). Next, by investigating the motion of old stars in the Milky Way, he and two co-authors showed in 1962 “that that the Milky Way formed from the collapse of a primordial gas cloud probably some 10 billion years ago. That paper still forms the basis of science’s understanding of where the galaxy came from” (NY Times). He continually revised the estimate of Hubble’s constant, the speed at which the universe is expanding. “By 1975 the value, they said, was all the way down to 50, corresponding to an age of as much as 20 billion years, comfortably larger than the ages of galaxies and globular clusters. This allowed them to conclude that the universe was not slowing down enough for gravity to reverse the expansion into a Big Crunch. That was in happy agreement with astronomers who had found that there was not enough matter in the universe to generate the necessary gravity” (NY Times).
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Philadelphia: David McKay Company, 1940.
Octavo. Original blue cloth, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. Some uneven tanning of the endpapers, contents faintly toned. A very good copy in the rubbed, nicked, and tanned jacket with some dark marks and a few chips.
Tyson, Neil deGrasse | Death by Black Hole
£150.00
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Sixth printing, published in the same year as the first. Presentation copy inscribed by the author in elaborate calligraphy on the half title, “To: Ravonne, Welcome to the Universe, Neil D. Tyson, May 2007”. Uncommon signed. The present volume is a collection of forty-two essays originally published in Tyson’s “Universe” column in Natural History Magazine between 1995 and 2005.
Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson’s (1958 - ) interest in astronomy began during childhood, when he viewed the Moon’s surface through a friend’s binoculars. Tyson studied at Harvard, the University of Texas, and Columbia, then joined the faculty of Princeton, where “many students found him a particularly inspiring professor” (Krapp, Notable Black American Scientists, p. 304). His academic research has been focused on cosmology, particularly star births and supernovae, and the structure of the Milky Way and other galaxies.
Throughout his career Tyson has also been focused on sharing astronomy with the general public, leading to him becoming one of the world’s most famous scientists. Since 1996 he has been the director of the Hayden Planetarium in New York; written columns in popular magazines; published sixteen books; become a popular figure on Twitter; and hosted several television shows, including the 2004 PBS series Origins and the 2014 reboot of Carl Sagan’s Cosmos. His reputation, however, has been affected by rape and sexual harassment allegations made public by fellow graduate student Thchiya Amet El Maat, professor Katelyn Allers, former assistant Ashley Watson, and an anonymous woman in late 2018.
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...and Other Cosmic Quandaries. New York & London: W. W. Norton & Company, 2007.
Octavo. Original yellow boards, black paper backstrip, titles to spine gilt. With the dust jacket. A little light rubbing at the edges, minor bump to the upper corner of the boards. An excellent copy in the jacket with a little creasing at the head of the spine panel and a minor vertical crease near the top of the spine panel.
Urey, Harold | Archive of correspondence with astronomer Arthur Beer
£1,250.00
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An archive of correspondence between astronomer Arthur Beer and Nobel Prize winning chemist Harold Urey regarding the latter’s contribution to Vistas in Astronomy.
Beer (1900-1980) was born in Richenberg, Bohemia (later Czechoslovakia), and educated in Austria and Germany. He worked as an astronomer at Breslau University, where he studied binary stars, and at the German Maritime Observatory. He also wrote newspaper columns and was responsible for developing one of the first scientific radio programmes, Aus Natur und Technik. Beer escaped from Germany in 1934, assisted by Einstein, who wrote him a public letter of recommendation, and spent the rest of his life in the UK. He worked at the Cambridge Solar Physics Observatory and at the Kew Observatory, and became a member of the Royal Astronomical Society. Beer’s most significant contribution to science was as the founding editor of Vistas in Astronomy, a “voluminous and thorough survey of present-day astronomy” in two volumes, conceived as a Festschrift celebrating the 70th birthday of astrophysicist Frederick J. M. Stratton, under whom he had served in Cambridge. The resulting volumes were so impressive that it was continued first as an annual book and then a quarterly journal.
American chemist Harold Urey (1893-1981) did key work on atomic and molecular structures, particularly hydrogen isotopes. This led him to the discovery of deuterium, for which he was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1934. During the Second World War he led the Manhattan Project’s branch at Columbia University, where he applied his knowledge of isotope separation techniques to the problem of isolating of pure uranium 235 on an industrial scale. After the war he worked at the Institute for Nuclear Studies at the University of Chicago. In 1958 Urey moved to the University of California, San Diego, where he did groundbreaking work on the origins of life on Earth, conducting a laboratory simulation of the conditions on the early Earth and proving that they were ideal for the production of cellular building blocks such as amino acids.
The correspondence present here consists of five letters from Urey, mainly on practical issues connected with his contribution to Beer’s book. In the first, on September 10th, 1952, he replies to Beer’s request for submissions, apologising for taking so long to reply as “I have not been able to think of a subkect to write about. I am leaving for Europe on the 14th of September and hope to visit Cambridge about October 15th. If it isn’t too late by that time perhaps we can discuss the question then. In the meantime, I will turn this over in my mind and try to think of something that I might contribute to the book.” On January 8th the following year he writes, “At last the paper for the Stratton volume!... I wish it were a better paper. If you do not wish to publish it I shall not be offended at all. There are quite a few notes and I believe references and notes are more easily read if placed at the bottom of the page. But perhaps your rules are all made long ago.” Later that month Urey sends short note to confirm receipt of the document, and in July he asks that the proofs be mailed to him in Stockholm. The final letter, dated by Beer in pencil as postmarked July 31st, 1953, discusses the terms he has chosen for the index (”I have underlined [in the returned proof, not present here] expressions indicating topics for the index... on the margins I have written additional suggestions” and relates that the illustrations had not arrived yet when he left for the states, but that “I believe the figures can be assumed to be all right”.
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Chicago, 1952-53. Including 3 typed letters signed (one with the signature removed for reproduction in Vistas in Astronomy) and 2 autograph letters signed by Urey. Housed in Beer’s tan paper folder with “Urey” in ink on the cover. Just a little creasing to some pieces. Excellent condition.
Webb, James E. | Three uncommon imprints by NASA administrator James E. Webb
£450.00
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James E. Webb (1906-1996) was NASA’s second administrator and one of its most significant, seeing the agency through the Mercury and Gemini programs and the preparation for the Apollo missions.
To Webb, “the space program was more than a political race. He believed that NASA had to strike a balance between human space flight and science because such a combination would serve as a catalyst for strengthening the nation's universities and aerospace industry... Webb's vision of a balanced program resulted in a decade of space science research that remains unparalleled today. During his tenure, NASA invested in the development of robotic spacecraft, which explored the lunar environment so that astronauts could do so later, and it sent scientific probes to Mars and Venus, giving Americans their first-ever view of the strange landscape of outer space. As early as 1965, Webb also had written that a major space telescope, then known as the Large Space Telescope, should become a major NASA effort. By the time Webb retired just a few months before the first moon landing in July 1969, NASA had launched more than 75 space science missions to study the stars and galaxies, our own Sun and the as-yet unknown environment of space above the Earth's atmosphere. Missions such as the Orbiting Solar Observatory and the Explorer series of astronomical satellites built the foundation for the most successful period of astronomical discovery in history, which continues today”. Webb also “enhanced the role of scientists in key ways. He gave them greater control in the selection process of science missions and he created the NASA University Program, which established grants for space research, funded the construction of new laboratories at universities and provided fellowships for graduate students” (”Who is James Webb?”, NASA James Webb Space Telescope website).
Webb’s legacy has been complicated by allegations that at the State Department and NASA he played a leading role in the lavender scare, in which hundreds of gay personnel were fired from the federal government. In 2021 four astronomers published an op-ed in Scientific American requesting the renaming of the soon-to-be-launched James Webb Space Telescope, but NASA administrators announced that an inquiry into Webb’s actions determined it was unlikely he had played a key role in the firings and the name would be kept.
These pamphlets deal with various aspects of space science and the space race. “Man Must Take Environment into Space” discusses the hostile environment of space and the ways that NASA scientists have prepared their vehicles and crew for it. “Administration and Management of Space Exploration” lays out the structure and goals of NASA, and “From Runnymede to Ganymede” is the text of a historical talk that Webb gave at the Celebration of the Prelude to Independence in Williamsburg, Virginia on May 27th, 1967.
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...“Man Must Take Environment into Space, Project Gemini.”, “Administration and Management of Space Exploration, Project Apollo”, and “From Runnymede to Ganymede” in Speaking of Space and Aeronautics Vol. IV, No. 1. Washington D.C.: NASA, 1962 & 1967.
3 16-page, wire-stitched pamphlets. The first two in white self-wraps printed in blue. The third in yellow wrappers printed in black and grey. Illustrations from photos within the texts of the first and second pamphlets. Just a little creasing and rubbing. Excellent condition.
Wright, F. E, F. H., and Helen | The Lunar Surface: Introduction
£450.00
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A rare offprint of a book chapter by the geologist and optical scientist who was considered the foremost authority on the Moon. This copy is inscribed for presentation by his daughter and co-author, science historian Helen Wright, and it comes from the library of Allan R. Sandage, the astronomer who determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble Constant and the age of the universe and was considered “the greatest and most influential observational astronomer of the last half-century” (NY Times obituary, November 17, 2010). Worldcat locates only two other copies of this offprint, at the Huntington and the US Naval Observatory.
Frederick Eugene Wright (1877-1953) spent much of his career at the Carnegie Institute, where he led the Moon Project at the Mount Wilson observatory and “specialized in mineralogy, crystallography and petrology. He developed various optical instruments, chiefly for petrology, and also wrote on the manufacture of optical glass... Wright took a special interest in studying the Moon. He charted all aspects of the orb from its chemical and mineralogical content to the characteristics of its craters and seas and its temperatures. So extensive and detailed was his work that the Moon’s Wright Crater is named after him and two other astronomers” (Optical Society of America biography).
Wright’s daughter Helen began her career as an assistant at Mount Wilson, researching the history of telescopes, and she also worked at the Vassar and U. S. Naval Observatories. Among her publications were biographies of astronomers George Ellery Hale and Maria Mitchell. She has inscribed this copy “Speaking of the Moon! All the best, Helen Wright”. We strongly suspect that it was inscribed for Allan Sandage’s wife, the astronomer Mary Connelly, who had studied at Indiana University and Radcliffe, and was teaching at Mount Holyoke when they met and married.
Allan R. Sandage (1926-2010) completed his physics degree at the University of Illinois in 1948, then became a graduate student at Caltech, where he “learned the nuts and bolts of observing with big telescopes [at the Mount Wilson Observatory] from the founders of modern cosmology, Hubble; Walter Baade, who became his thesis adviser, and Milton Humason, a former mule driver who had become Hubble’s right-hand man” (NY Times). “For his doctoral thesis he studied the stars in the globular cluster Messier 3 and the RR Lyrae variable stars it contains. Refinements in the accuracy of the distances to variable stars became a recurring theme of his work, as these were the first step in determining the ladder of distances through which the true scale of the universe was measured” (Guardian obituary, December 9, 2010).
Sandage’s first major contribution was the 1961 paper, “The Ability of the 200-inch Telescope to Discriminate Between Selected World Models”, which “may well have been ‘the most influential paper ever written in any field even close to cosmology’... It was to set the direction of observational cosmology for 40 years, ruling out the Steady State and the Big Crunch and culminating in the surprise discovery in 1998 that the expansion is not slowing down at all but speeding up” (NY Times). Next, by investigating the motion of old stars in the Milky Way, he and two co-authors showed in 1962 “that that the Milky Way formed from the collapse of a primordial gas cloud probably some 10 billion years ago. That paper still forms the basis of science’s understanding of where the galaxy came from” (NY Times). He continually revised the estimate of Hubble’s constant, the speed at which the universe is expanding. “By 1975 the value, they said, was all the way down to 50, corresponding to an age of as much as 20 billion years, comfortably larger than the ages of galaxies and globular clusters. This allowed them to conclude that the universe was not slowing down enough for gravity to reverse the expansion into a Big Crunch. That was in happy agreement with astronomers who had found that there was not enough matter in the universe to generate the necessary gravity” (NY Times).
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...Reprinted from Middlehurst and Kuiper: The Moon, Meteorites, and Comets (The Solar System, Vol. IV). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1963.
56-page pamphlet, wire-stitched. Original buff wrappers printed in black. 3 double-sided plates, illustrations and charts within the text. Wrappers a little creased and toned, with some small marks and scratches, minor crease affecting the lower corner of the contents. Very good condition
Wyatt, [Matthew Coates] | A Representation of the Meteor seen at Paddington...
£4,750.00
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A dramatic and uncommon mezzotint depicting the spectacular meteor seen in London on February 11th, 1850, by the prominent court artist Matthew Coates Wyatt (1777-1862). One other copy of this print appears in recent auction records, sold at Galerie Bassenge in 2016, and institutional copies are held at the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich, Museum Bojmans in Rotterdam, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and the British Museum, which has George Cruikshank’s copy, presented to him by the artist.
“In 1850 a huge meteor appeared over England and was visible in London. It was captured dramatically by Matthew Coates Wyatt over Paddington in a mezzotint that suggests, due to the explosion and sparks of its head, that it was a bolide... Other accounts and representations from various locations were reported in the Illustrated London News... as well as in other periodicals. James Glaisher, the assistant to the Astronomer Royal, published an appeal for additional reports in the same issue, and consequently so many accounts were sent in that Glaisher had them published in the Philosophical Magazine” (Olson & Pasachoff, Fire in the Sky: Comets and Meteors, the Decisive Centuries in British Art and Science, pp. 213-214).
“By good luck, the painter and sculptor Matthew Cotes Wyatt happened to witness the meteor over Paddington; sensing a market, he published this velvety mezzotint of the view two months later... The technique had largely gone out of fashion by 1850, but the rich darks and brilliant lights that it allows were a perfect choice for this dramatic nighttime scene” (Museum of Fine Arts Boston).
Wyatt was the youngest son of the architect James Wyatt and a favourite in the court of George III. “His designs represented a dramatic and full-blooded union of neo-classicism and baroque revival. He was more a theatrical designer than a sculptor in the conventional sense” (ODNB). Wyatt was responsible for a number of significant commissions, including the ceiling of the concert room at Hanover Square; the Nelson monument in the Exchange Flags at Liverpool; Princess Charlotte’s marble cenotaph in St. George’s Chapel at Windsor; the bronze equestrian statue of George III that stands in Pall Mall East; and extensive decorative work at Belvoir Castle, home of the Duke of Rutland.
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...About 12 Minutes before 11 O'Clock, on the Evening of the 11th of February 1850. Mr. Wyatt having retained that splendid object in view from its appearance until it passed away in brilliant corruscations, made a drawing of it whilst its impression upon him remained undiminished, and he shortly afterwards Engraved this Plate, in order that a faithfully graphical exhibition of its appearance might be more generally diffused. London: Lloyd Bros. & Leggatt, Hayward & Leggatt, May 1, 1850.
Mezzotint (print 280 x 425 mm, sheet 320 x 445 mm). Professionally conserved and cleaned. Mounted, framed and glazed using archival materials. Pencilled note ‘Astronomy” to the sheet. Some minor creases affecting the image, paper lightly toned. Very good condition.
[Vyssotsky] Williams, Emma T. R., et al. | The Fundamental Properties of the Galactic System.
£450.00
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First edition, first printing of this collection of eight papers from the New York Academy of Science’s conference on the Fundamental Properties of the Galactic System, held in New York on May 2nd and 3rd, 1941. One of the papers, “Mean Parallaxes from Peculiar Motions”, is by the prominent female astronomer Emma Vyssotsky (née Williams).
This copy from the library of Allan R. Sandage, the most important astronomy and cosmologist of his generation, who determined the first reasonably accurate values for the Hubble Constant and the age of the universe. With the ownership initials of his wife, the astronomer Mary Connelly, who had studied at Indiana University and Racliffe, and was teaching at Mount Holyoke when they met (New York Times obituary, November 17, 2010).
Vyssotsky (1894-1975) studied mathematics and astronomy as an undergraduate at Swarthmore, then researched A-type (young, energetic) stars from the Harvard Observatory for her Radcliffe Phd. While she was a postgraduate researcher at the University of Virginia’s McCormick Observatory she met and married fellow astronomy Alexander N. Vyssotsky. “She remained for the rest of her career at the University of Virginia, first as a research fellow and instructor in astronomy, and then, at age fifty, began to work with her husband on a book on stellar motions, published four years later” (Ogilvie, Biographical Dictionary of Women in Science p. 1333).
Vyssotsky and her husband studied “stellar parallaxes by applying trigonometric functions to observations made on multiple photographic exposures. They discovered many of these parallaxes by attaching a special objective prism to the observatory's astrograph. Their research led to accurate calculations of stellar motions and the determination of the structure of galaxies” (Oakes, Encyclopedia of World Scientists). In 1946 Vyssotsky was awarded the American Astronomical Society’s Annie Jump Canon Award in Astronomy in recognition of her contributions to the field of stellar spectra.
This volume also contains papers by Peter van de Kamp, Dirk Brouwer, W. J. Luyten, Jan Schilt, and Frederick Seares, among others. It was edited by astronomer Bart J. Bok, who met Sandage when he was an undergraduate and was influential in the direction his career took.
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...Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences Volume XLII, Art 2. Pages 113-272. New York: by the Academy, October 15, 1941.
Octavo. Original tan wrappers printed in black. Charts and graphs within the text. Ownership initials in black ink to the upper wrapper. Some loss from the ends of the spine, wrappers rubbed and toned with few small marks and some mild creasing. Very good condition.