The cycle of celestial objects continued at the hartwell observatory to 1859. With a notice of recent discoveries, including details from the aedea hartwellianae

ix, [1], 480pp. With six engraved plates (one in colour depicting Encke’s comet), and numerous engraved illustrations in the text. Original publisher's burgundy cloth, stamped in gilt and blind. Rubbed and sunned, surface loss to spine and joints, corners bumped. Hinges exposed, bookseller's ticket of Edward Baker of Birmingham to FEP, scattered spotting. Presentation copy, inked inscription to FEP: 'Presented to The Reverend W. Selwyn. F.R.A.S. with the respects of Admiral Smyth & Dr. Lee. Hartwell. 9. August: 1861', with armorial bookplates of Smyth and Lee pasted below. The sole edition, printed for private circulation, of naval officer and surveyor William Henry Smyth's (1788-1865) detailed account of the discoveries of the astronomical observatory at Hartwell House, built between 1830 and 1839 by polymath John Lee (1783-1866) (who also funded the printing of this volume) to Smyth's specifications. Smyth, one of the founders of the Royal Geographical Society, was the author of a plethora of books, including an earlier astronomical work The Cycle of Celestial Objects for the Use of Naval, Military, and Private Astronomers (1844), for which he was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. William Selwyn (1806-1875), Church of England clergyman, sometime Ramsden preacher at Cambridge and chaplain-in-ordinary to Victoria. The Birmingham based second-hand bookseller Edward Baker issued numerous catalogues on several subjects (topography, theology, poetry, etc.), and advertised 'out-of-print books', maintaining that he was (according to his ticket) 'the most expert bookfinder extant', and on occasion claimed that his firm was 'patronised by the nobility'. Size: Quarto.…