The rare text volume to Bode's famous star atlas

BODE, Johann Englert.

Allgemeine Beschreibung und Nachweisung der Gestirne nebst Verzeichniss der Geraden Aufsteigung und Abweichung von 17240 Sternen, Doppelsternen, Nebelflecken und Sternhaufen (zu dessen Uranographie gehörig) / Description et Connoissance Generale des Constellations avec Un Catalogue del'Ascension Droite et de la Declinaison de 17240 Etoiles, Doubles, Nebuleuses et Amas d'Etoiles, (Pour Servir de Suite a son Uranographie).

Berlin: Selbstverlag / chez l'auteur, 1801.

1st Edition. Hardcover. Large Folio. Very Good. Item #003831

Large Folio (428 x 260 mm). viii, 32, 96 pp. Text in two columns in German and French, list of subscribers fo the Uranographie on pp. vii-viii. Bound in contemporary full tree calf, double gilt fillet borders, spine richly gilt-decorated and with black morocco label lettered in gilt (wear to extremities, joints partly split toward spine ends, corners bumped and scuffed, minor worming to inner boards and free endpapers). Text generally clean and bright throughout, small dampstain to upper margin of pp. 45-48, small faint ink stain to fore margin of pp. 73-88. A very good copy. ----

EXCEEDINGLY RARE FIRST AND ONLY EDITION of the mostly missing text volume to Bode's great Uranography published the same year. Compared to the great star atlas by Bode, the text volume which was published separately, is surprisingly rare. We know of only 3 copies that have come to auction in the past 50 year including one copy owned by the famous lady astronomer Caroline Herschel (Sotheby's 1984, lot no. 22).
Johann Englert Bode (1747-1826), a native of Hamburg and astronomical autodidact, was director of the Berlin observatory and - among numerous other publications - editor of the Astronomisches Jahrbuch. The inaccuracies in the maps of the Uranographia, which could not be avoided due to the variety of private and scientific observational contributions, were compensated by Bode by a corrective index published already one year later. "Among the astronomical authors of the 18th century, he occupies the first rank." (cf. ADB III, 1).
"Bode's two sky atlases were for a long time indispensable tools for astronomers. His 'Uranographia' surpassed all its predecessors by listing over 17,000 stars and containing, for the first time, the nebulae, star clusters, and double stars discovered by William Herschel" (Kenney).
References: DSB II, p.220; Warner p. 39; Poggendorff I, 217f; Schroder I, 289, 25; Kenney 24 (all for the atlas). - Visit our website to see more images!

Price: 3,900 €  *  convert currency