Description

PROCTOR’S “NEW STAR ATLAS,” English, 1870, the large 10″ x 14-3/4″ (25 x 37 cm) volume with cloth-bound covers, stamped with foliate designs in the spandrels and gilt-stamped with the title. With 27 text pages, 12 double-page circular charts, and two double-page “index” plates, the atlas presents “All the stars visible to the naked eye, and fifteen hundred objects of interest,… without appreciable distortion, on an adequate scale, and within a convenient volume.” Most interesting are the two index plates which present the entire sky in trapezoidal and pentagonal segments and with the classical constellation figures delineated and colored. Condition is fine noting minor foxing and slight wear to the cover’s edges. A fine atlas, by the famous astronomer Richard Proctor, here in the 1870 first edition.