Astronomical Lessons, Or Chapters on the Elementary Principles and Facts of Astronomy for the Use of Students and Young People

First edition, first impression.  136pp, with tissue guarded monochrome plate frontispiece and 21 further monochrome plate illustrations.  Deep blue publisher’s cloth-covered boards with gilt lettering and decorations front and spine.   Top edge gilt.  Decorated endpapers. 12mo.  Cloth pushed at spine ends, lightly rubbed on corners, slightly shelf worn.  Previous owners inscription, dated 1891, neatly inked on front free endpaper.  Half title page toned, with imprint of inscription, else internally neat, clean, bright and tight.

A very nice, presentable and robust copy.  John Ellard Gore (1845-1910) was an amateur astronomer, a variable star observer whoi discovered new variables.  As aprolific writer on the topic he did much much to popularise interest in astronomy in the late 19th century, and he was a founder member of the British Astronomical Society (although his term as a director of the BAA is not always seen as wholly successful).  He wrote his first book – Southern Stellar Objected for Small Telescopes (1877) whilst in India; a decade later he wrote a series of popular texts summarising the contemporary state of astronomical knowledge.  Astronomical Lessons is the second of these; elegantly illustrated, it served also as an observational guide book.  A hard to find volume rarely seen on the market.