PBA Galleries

[62], [330] pp. Edited by John Bevis. Copper-engraved frontispiece portrait. (4to) 28.8x22.5 cm (11¼x8¾"), period calf with gilt embossed stamp of Society of Writers to the Signet on both covers, spine ruled in gilt, raised bands, morocco lettering piece. First Edition in English. 

The first edition in English of Halley's great work, containing his discovery of the secular inequality in the moon's mean motion and of the long inequality of Jupiter and Saturn, also a reprint of his famous Synopsis Astronomiae Cometicae which founded the modern science of astronomy and comets, and in which Halley identified the comets of 1531, 1607, and 1692 ("Halley's Comet") as one and the same. In two parts, the first containing the preface and precepts in English, the second being a reissue of Halley's 'Edmundi Halleii astronomi dum viveret regii tabulæ astronomicæ', London, 1749, without the half-title or license to print. With two final index leaves, the second containing the register; the errata leaf, mentioned in some listings in OCLC, not present here.