A BEAUTIFUL REPUBLICATION OF AN 18th CENTURY ASTRONOMY CLASSIC

ASTRONOMIE By Jerome Le Francais (La Lande)   A faithful 1966 reprint of the 1792 set of 3 volumes with 38 plates, several of them foldout Covers a wide range of astronomical topics of the time, from calculating positions of the planets, to describing the transits of Venus, to using telescopes, heliometers, mural quadrants, and other measuring instruments of the time.     Description: Jerome Le Francais (La Lande). ASTRONOMIE, Troisieme Edition, Revue et Augmentee [3rd edition revised and expanded]; 3 volumes, originally published in Paris by Chez la Veuve Desaint, 1792.  Reprinted facsimile by Johnson Reprint Corporation, New York, 1966, Each volume 7.5 x 10 inches; V1. 478 pp text plus 378 pp of tables; V2 737 pp; V3 727 pp; 38 Plates, several large foldouts, most in Volume 2.   Condition: Hardbound in brown cloth with gilt titles on spines. Very slight handling wear. Former owner's label on flyleaf of each volume. Otherwise clean, very securely bound, and unmarked with crisp page edges. Overall VG+ condition. A very handsome set.   Information: A lovely and faithful reprint of the magisterial 3 volume astronomy text in French by Jerome LaLande.  Covers all areas of astronomy at the time, from the use of astronomical instruments--including a section on the price of astronomical instruments (!), to practical methods of calculating positions of planets, transits of Venus, reduction of measurements, etc.  Extensive tables of planetary and lunar data. Original editions of this book run more than $1000, and this reprint itself is quite scarce, and almost never found in such nice condition.   A most desirable work for those interested in the history of astronomy, astronomical instrumentation, astrophysics, geodesy, surveying, spherical astronomy, illustrated science books of the 18th Century, etc., etc.   Biographical Note:  Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de Lalande (1732 – 1807) was a French astronomer and writer. In school, he was drawn to astronomy, and became the zealous and favoured pupil of both Delisle and Pierre Charles Le Monnier. Having completed his legal studies, he was about to return to Bourg to practise as an advocate, when Lemonnier obtained permission to send him to Berlin, to make observations on the lunar parallax in concert with those of Lacaille at the Cape of Good Hope. The successful execution of this task obtained for him, before he was twenty-one, admission to the Academy of Berlin, as well as his election as an adjunct astronomer to the French Academy of Sciences. He now devoted himself to the improvement of the planetary theory, publishing in 1759 corrected edition of Edmond Halley's tables, with a history of Halley's Comet whose return in that year he had helped Alexis Clairaut to calculate. In 1762 Delisle resigned the chair of astronomy in the Collège de France in Lalande's favour. The duties were discharged by Lalande for forty-six years. His house became an astronomical seminary, and amongst his pupils were Delambre, Giuseppe Piazzi, Pierre Méchain, and his own nephew Michel Lalande. By his publications in connection with the transit of Venus of 1769 he won great fame. However, his difficult personality lost him some popularity. Although his investigations were conducted with diligence rather than genius, Lalande's career was an eminent one. As a lecturer and writer he helped popularise astronomy. His planetary tables, into which he introduced corrections for mutual perturbations, were the best available up to the end of the 18th century. In 1801 he endowed the Lalande Prize, administered by the French Academy of Sciences, for advances in astronomy. Pierre-Antoine Véron, the young astronomer who for the first time in history determined the size of the Pacific Ocean from east to west, was Lalande's disciple. But Lalande's greatest contribution was as a writer of textbooks, the most important being his 'Traitè d'Astronomie' of 1764, with subsequent editions in 1771 and 1792. It became a standard textbook and had the advantage over others texts of containing much practical information on instruments and methods of calculation.

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