We are over the moon to offer a catalogue of inventory related to outer space ranging from the first published scientific work based on observations of the moon and stars made through a telescope, to fiction inspired by interstellar travel! Highlights include the original sketchbook for William M. Timlin's The Ship that Sailed to Mars; an autograph letter from astronomer Maria Mitchell; a group photograph signed by the first four Russian cosmonauts; and an interesting piece of commemorative space memorabilia from the first international partnership in space: the Apollo-Soyuz docking, which took place in July 1975.
London: John Murray, 1878. Life on Ascension Island with her husband Scottish Astronomer David Gill to measure the solar parallax-the distance between the Earth and the Sun-by observing Mars, which was then the closest to Earth than it had been for a century. Read More about Six Months in Ascension. A Unscientific Account of a Scientific Expedition
Price: $500
London & New York: Pergamon Press, 1955. First edition. Inscribed to Dannie Heineman. Edited by Beers, the 2 volumes were published on the occasion of the retirement of F.J.M. Stratton from the chair of Astrophysics in the University of Cambridge. Each volume is inscribed to Dannie Heineman from Arthur Beer. Read More about Vistas in Astronomy. In Two Volumes. (Special Supplement No.3 & No. 4 to the Journal of...
Price: $250
![Item #1620 The Uses of Astronomy, a Discourse [forming a part of] The Inauguration of the Dudley...](https://jamescumminsbookseller.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/1620.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1669655546)
Albany: Charles van Benthuysens Print, 1856. First Edition. NO COPY LOCATED IN NUC. In addition to the "Discourse" by Everett, this book, issued in honor of the dedication of the Dudley Observatory at Albany contains various speeches and a long poem dedicated to the American Association for the Advancement of..... Read More about The Uses of Astronomy, a Discourse [forming a part of] The Inauguration of the Dudley Observatory...
Price: $250
New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, [1955]. First edition. The first published book, and third in the chronological sequence, of Blish’s Okie or Cities in Flight cycle, assembled from stories published in Astounding and elsewhere: "Okie", "Bindlestiff", "Sargasso of Lost Cities", and "Earthman, Come Home". The book is dedicated to influential..... Read More about Earthman, Come Home
Price: $300
Tarzana, California: Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc, [1936]. First edition. The eighth book of the Mars series. Read More about Swords of Mars
Price: $1,100
[New York]: Warner Communications, [1987]. First edition. Read More about Dawn. Xenogenesis
Price: $125
New York: L. Harper & Brothers, Publishers, nd [1951]. First American edition, from British sheets, of the Author's First Book with signatures "A" on the title page and "A*" on the half-title. AUTHOR'S FIRST BOOK. Read More about Interplanetary Flight. An Introduction to Astronautics
Price: $400
Colombo, Ceylon: 24 Sept 1959. "All education and experience is important to a writer ... " Written in response to Hartley's TLS asking: "How important ... was [your] high school education, and is college experience necessary for creative writing?" Hartley had cited the biographical sketch in MODERN SF, and Clarke..... Read More about Typed Letter Signed ("Arthur C. Clarke") to Westley S. Hartley, in response to the...
Price: $600
Paris: 1860. Troisième édition. INSCRIBED TO BECQUEREL. Inscribed on half-title "à M. Becquerel de l'[auteur], témoignage de respectueuse affection Ch. Delaunay." The recipient is likely Antoine César Becquerel (1788-1878), a pioneer in the study of electricity and first in a line of distinguished scientists (his grandson, Henri Bequerel, won the..... Read More about Cours elementaire d'Astronomie. Concordant avec les articles du Programme official pour l'...
Price: $750
Amherst, MA: 2 October 1992. Samuel Delany on science fiction criticism, with overdue apologies. An interesting and digressive letter: “Dear Tom, “At long last I’m getting a manuscript back to you — with a long and unhappy tale. “In 1990, Johns Hopkins University Press sent me the enclosed manuscript of..... Read More about Typed Letter, Signed (“Samuel R. Delany”), to science fiction author Tom Disch, discussing...
Price: $1,500
London: Jonathan Cape, 1955. First edition, first impression, second state. A nice, unrestored, copy of the third Bond novel, with a great dinner scene that belies the later movie myth that Bond was just a martini man. Noel Coward read the proofs in Jamaica and called it “the best thing..... Read More about Moonraker
Price: $6,000
Modena: Antonio Capponi and the heirs of Pontiroli, 1695. First editions. Gaetano Fontana was an Italian priest and astronomer who corresponded with Cassini: in fact, Cassini said that Fontana's obervations were the most exact of all that were sent to him. This is his most famous work. [Bound with:] WARD..... Read More about Institutio Physico-Astronomica Adiecta in Fine Appendice Geographica
Price: $3,000
Paris: Michel Brunet, 1698. Fourth edition. A defence of the heliocentric model of the solar system, one of the major early works of the Enlightenment. Read More about Entretiens sur la pluralité des mondes
Price: $750
![Item #345387 Institutio astronomica [...] Galilei Galilei Nuntius sidereus, et Johannis Kepleri...](https://jamescumminsbookseller.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/345387.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1690412281)
London: Jacobi Flesher, 1653. Secunda editio priori correctior. The Starry Messenger. First published in 1647, Gassendi's important astronomical text book which outlines the various competing Ptolemaic, Copernican, Tychonic models, also includes printings of Galileo's Siderus Nuncius (the third overall edition) and Kepler's important work on optics Dioptrice. Wing does not..... Read More about Institutio astronomica [...] Galilei Galilei Nuntius sidereus, et Johannis Kepleri Dioptrice
Price: $18,000
N. P: n.d. Scottish astronomer. Especially noted for his use of photography in astronomy. He was the Astronomer Royal at Cape of Good Hope for many years. From the autograph collection of Harry P. Kuhn Jr. Read More about Card signed "David Gill"
Price: $75
Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Instiution, March 16, 1936. First edition. An important marker in the development of rocketry and space flight, the pamphlet sums up Goddard's pioneering work in rocketry over the previous two decades. On March 16, 1926 Goddard launched the world's first liquid propellant rocket, from a site near..... Read More about Liquid-Propellant Rocket Development
Price: $4,200
Washington, D.C: Smithsonian Institution, 1919. First edition. Foundations of Rocketry and Space Flight. One of the earliest publications on rocketry and space flight, and "the most influential and important of Goddard’s scientific papers ... The short treatise offered detailed mathematical proof that solid propellant rockets were capable of boosting modest..... Read More about A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes
Price: $11,500
New York: Young Scott Books, 1970. First edition. Inscribed “For Bob / Edward Gorey”. Read More about Why we have Day and Night
Price: $285
Collingwood [House, Hawkhurst]: April 12, 1867. Reading in part: "This will be handed to you by my son Lieut. John Herschel R[oyal] B[engal] E[ngineers] ... who is very desirous of an introduction to you...." Herschel also regrets that he will not be able to attend a soiree, for "my state..... Read More about Autograph Letter Signed ("JFW Herschel"), to General P–, introducing his son
Price: $1,100
London: Printed for Bernard Lintot, at the Cross-Keys, 1739. The Third Edition Corrected. Read More about Introduction to the True Astronomy or Astronomical Lectures, Read in the Astronomical School of...
Price: $750
Paris: Imprimerie du Cercle-Social, L’An IV de la République Française [1796]. First edition, with half-titles, without errata as usual. “Among the most influential scientists in all history” — DSB. “Book I begins with what any attentive observer may see if he will open his eyes to the spectacle of the..... Read More about Exposition du Systême du Monde
Price: $2,700
London: Royal Astronomical Society, Burlington House, 1893. Reprinted from the Memoirs of the Royal Astronomical Society Vol. LI. INSCRIBED. Inscribed on the front cover: Dr. Ångström/ with regards from/ J.E. Keeler." Most probably Prof. Knut Angstrom (1857-1910), son of Anders Jonas Ångström. Read More about Physical Observations of Mars made at the Allegheny Observatory in 1892
Price: $300
New York: Random House, [1982]. First edition, no. 80 of 500 specially bound, numbered copies, signed by the author. Deluxe SIGNED edition. Read More about Space
Price: $400
Palm Beach, Florida: September 22 and November 13, 1975. A pair of letters from Apollo 14 astronaut Ed Mitchell (1930-2016) to William Targ, editor at Putnam's, in which Mitchell expresses his annoyance at the publisher's failure to send royalty statements for his book Psychic Exploration (1974), and expressing frustration at..... Read More about A pair of typed letters signed ("Edgar D Mitchell" and "Ed M"), to Putnam's...
Price: $350
![Item #353878 Autograph letter signed, "Maria", to Mrs. Gay[?], on social matters, seeing Ida,...](https://jamescumminsbookseller.cdn.bibliopolis.com/pictures/353878.jpg?width=320&height=427&fit=bounds&auto=webp&v=1690413734)
Nantucket: "Tuesday" [September 1854]. "The most prominent woman professor ... and the first real 'scientist' since Jane Colden in the 1750s, in that she published at least seven scientific articles, was the astronomer Maria Mitchell, certainly the most important woman scientist in America in the nineteenth century. Her election to..... Read More about Autograph letter signed, "Maria", to Mrs. Gay[?], on social matters, seeing Ida,...
Price: $1,200