The Heavens Illustrated
London: 1844

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Heavens Illustrated Heavens Illustrated
Heavens Illustrated Heavens Illustrated
The Heavens Illustrated In a Series of Plates; Displaying the Most Beautiful Celestial Phenomena, With Popular Descriptions Applicable to the Science of Astronomy
Groombridge, Paternoster Row, London: 1844
The Caxton Foundry, Old Bailey, London (printer)
Red cloth with red quarter leather spine
Quarto, 12.25 x 10 inches
Provenance: Donald Graham of Skel[?] Castle
Sold, please inquire as to the availability of similar items.

Extremely rare celestial and astronomical atlas, illustrated in sixteen hand-colored full page plates, as well as sixteen additional partial page plates. Topics include the Zodiac, Accounts of the Planets, the Phases of the Moon, and numerous other celestial and astronomical phenomena. Written passages correspond to the illustrations. The title page features a charming illustration of Sir Isaac Newton discovering gravity as an apple falls from a tree, along with an article in the book celebrating the life and work of Newton.

The illustrations of the 12 signs of the zodiac are particularly handsome, the figures executed in color, heightened with gum Arabic, against a black night sky with white engraved details of surrounding stars and constellations, and within elaborate linear Victorian borders in blue in the style of relief picture frames. This style is largely original to this atlas, though the use of dark backgrounds also appeared in Smith's Illustrated Atlas, a popular textbook published in the mid 19th century in New York. This atlas, like Smith's, includes a classroom scene in which students are being taught with an oversized orrery. However, Smith's Astronomy is relatively common and we have located no other copies of this British atlas.

An advertisement section appearing on the table of contents page describes the purpose of the book:

The Astronomical Treatise here submitted to the Public, appeared in detached portions a few years since, in a highly popular Weekly Periodical. It was considered one of the most successful of the day; the sale at one period reaching from 60,000 to 100,000 copies weekly.

The present Proprietors conceiving that a republication of some of its most useful Treatises, in a collected and complete form, and printed in a superior style, would be deemed a valuable acquisition, not merely as an instructive Guide to young people, but that it would be esteemed by many families as by no means unworthy to mingle with the numerous pictorial literary productions with which it is now-a-days the enlightened fashion to grace our drawing-room tables; have selected the interesting subject of Astronomy for their first issue.

Should this small volume, the first of a contemplated series, meet with a favourable reception by the public, others, printed in a uniform style, will be published in succession, with as little delay as practicable.

London, October, 1843.

Illustrations listed in the Table of Contents:

Eclipses [not appearing in this offered volume], The Zodiac, Aries, Taurus, Herschel's great reflecting Telescope, Gemini, The Moon, as it appeared in Dec., 1833, The Orrery, Cancer, Leo, Virgo, Libra, Scorpio, Sagittarius, Capricornus, Acquarisu, Pisces, View of the Solar System, On the Appearance of the Heavens, Phases of the Moon to the Inhabitants of the Earth, A Telescopic View of the Sun, Telescopic Appearance of Venus, Telescopic View of the Moon, View of the Earth in her Orbit round the Sun, Telescopic Appearance of Mars, Telescopic View of Comets, Appearance of Jupiter, Appearance of Saturn, Appearance of the Comet in Constellation Leo, Appearance of the Celestial System, Comparative size of the Planets, Annular Eclipse of the Sun, Appearance of the Sun from the Earth.