Flamsteed, John

Atlas coelestis. London: for the author, 1729



Folio (21 x 15 in.; 534 x 381 mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait by G. Vertue after T. Gibson, title-page with engraved vignette by L. du Gurnier after I. B. Catenaro, headpiece by and after the same, engraved initial and tail-piece to text, 27 double-page engraved celestial charts by James Mynde and Abraham Sharp, including the celestial hemisphere; upper right corners of frontispiece and title-page chewed and dampstained, title-page a little soiled, dampstaining and discoloration to upper margins throughout, light scattered foxing, long tears to plate of Hercules and the 2 celestial charts repaired, short tears, chiefly fold splits, along bottom margin of 23 plates, heavy staining to folding plate of Hydra Crater. Eighteenth-century mottled calf, spine gilt, plain endpapers; mottling oxidized and bitten into leather, with loss of top layer along top of boards, board edges restored, rebacked with original spine laid down, front free endpaper chewed in upper right corner.  

Linda Hall, Out of This World, 27

Appointed the first Astronomer Royal in 1675, Flamsteed presided over the building of Greenwich Observatory. "He was a dedicated observational astronomer, and his 'British Catalogue' of stars, finally published in 1725, well after his death [in 1719], brought stellar astronomy to a new level" (Linda Hall). The present star atlas, completed four years later by his widow with the help of his two assistants James Hodgson and Joseph Crosthwait, contained Flamsteed's newer, more accurate observations. The reason for this publication was his conflict with Isaac Newton, the President of the Royal Society at the time. Flamsteed refused to publish work that had  been commissioned by the king, and in 1712, Newton and Edmond Halley published a preliminary version of Flamsteed's Historia coelestis Britannica without crediting the author. Flamsteed denounced it and destroyed as many copies as he could.

Another one of Flamsteed's motives in publishing the atlas was to correct what he felt were misleading errors in Bayer's depiction of the constellation figures. "Bayer had reversed many of the figures, showing them from  the rear instead of the front,  and these new positions contradicted the traditional star descriptions" (Linda Hall). The atlas also holds the distinction of being the largest that had been published hitherto.