Addenda to the Aedes Hartwellianae by Admiral W.H. Smyth, John Bowyer Nichols and Sons, London, 1864, 332pp, cloth, 10 x 12”, 4to

Poor condition/as is.  Wear and staining to front and rear boards.  Front board and endpapers up to dedication page are completely detached from binding.  Tips are bumped with exposed boards.  Spine is completely lacking; binding is exposed at headcap and tail.  Bookplate for Phillips Library of Harvard College Observatory on front pastedown.  Toning and age-staining throughout textblock.  Binding is fragile.  Illustrated.  Please see photos and ask any questions prior to purchase.

The astronomer John Lee (1783-1866) inherited Hartwell House in Buckinghamshire in 1827.  During its colorful history, the mansion had notably been occupied between 1809 and 1814 by the exiled court of Louis XVIII.  Lee turned the house into something of a museum for his antiquarian and scientific interests, constructing an observatory to the design of his close friend William Henry Smyth (1788-1865), after whom Lee named a lunar sea.  A naval officer, Smyth had helped to found the Royal Geographical Society in 1830.  His Sidereal Chromatics (1864) and The Sailor’s Word-Book (1867) are also reissued in this series.  This charming history and description of Hartwell, its grounds, buildings, and contents, appeared in two volumes between 1851 and 1864, illuminating especially the practice of contemporary astronomy.  Illustrated throughout, the second volume (1864) serves as a supplement, recording Smyth’s researches in the years since the first volume went to press.