Lot 7B email save

Bevis (J.) Atlas Celeste

Celestial.- [Bevis (John)] Atlas Celeste, or the Celestial Atlas,

explanatory title or advertising broadsheet, engraved allegorical frontispiece, depicting Urania presenting a volume on astronomy to Frederick Prince of Wales, with Greenwich Observatory in the background, 51 celestial charts, including 2 of the hemispheres, and index, engraved charts each c.315 x 375mm., a few oil spots to lower margins, only, of title, frontispiece, plate III and plate IV, a printer's crease to plate XI and plate LI, minor marginal dust-staining to plate XLIII, a repaired tear in the index leaf, otherwise a clean copy, 19th century half blue calf over marbled boards, rubbed, edges worn, spine gilt-lettered, oblong folio, 1786.

***Very rare. Apparently only 23 copies are known to exist, of which only two others contain the advertising broadsheet (the Manchester Astronomical Society Library copy and the folded copy in the British Library). John Bevis (1693-1771), astronomer and physician, spent twelve years extending and correcting Bayer's Uranometria star catalogue of 1603 from his home observatory at Stoke Newington. It appears that only a few, pre-publication, copies of his Uranographia Britannica, the original title of this work, were issued before 1750, when his publisher, John Neale, went bankrupt and the copperplates were sequestered by the Court of Chancery. W.B.Ashworth, in Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, 125, 1981, (at which time only 12 copies were known to exist) postulates "Uranographia was never published and there exist no editions at all... a certain amount of material was printed in anticipation of publication, and all the surviving atlases in their various forms are simply remains of pre-publication runs." They were eventually published in about 1786, after the plates were bought anonymously from the sale of Bevis's library, following the death of his executor. The broadsheet title explains: "The expence of the Engravings was immense, as the most Capital Artists in Europe were employed in executing them, and the learned and ingenious Delineators and Directors of the Work had determined to sell it by way of Subscription at Five Guineas the Set. The heavy Charge attending it, rendered some of them Insolvent, others were removed by Death, which with divers adverse Occurrences were the Means of retarding the Publication until the present Period 1786. Many of the Copies have been destroyed by Fire and Removals; the few that remain are now offered at One Guinea and a Half each Set. This elegant and useful Work is not, nor ever has been in the Hands of any Bookseller. The Copies saved are all of the first Impression, and will be an Ornament to any Library, and highly worthy the Notice and Patronage of every Lover of the Sciences". .

Condition report

PLEASE NOTE: There are now 23 recorded copies, not 16. The British Library copy is defective in that the plates are folded, not because it is incomplete.