Astronomy in Five Books
Cambridge, 1742. 1st Edition. Hardcover. Very Good. Item #1405311
Cambridge: Printed for the author, 1742 (?1764 [i.e. 1784])., 1742. 2 volumes, 4to, pp. xvi, (viii), 356; iv, (357)?728, (14), 2 engraved frontispieces and 97 folding engraved plates. Engraved vignette on pp. 1 and 585. Handmade paper covered covers, spines gilt, red morocco labels, a clean copy, front edge of spine of volume one cracking but holding tight. FIRST EDITION. In this large treatise Long provided a thorough introduction to the principles of astronomy and navigation, as well as to the use of maps and globes. He published the first two books, comprising the first volume, in 1742, but it was to be forty-two years, and fourteen years after his death, before the second volume appeared. The final, unfinished, book was largely completed by Richard Dunthorne, and after his death by William Wales, and was checked by Nevil Maskelyne. A very early and important, and well illustrated, purely scientific work on astronomy, first published exactly 100 years after the death of Galileo, the father of modern astronomy. Both volumes in very good condition, paper is wavy, some soiling.
Price: $3,500.00