FLAMSTEED, John (1649-1719) [and FLAMSTEED, Margaret (c.1669-1730), HODGSON, James (1678-1755), SHARP, Abraham (1651-1742), and CROSTHWAIT, Joseph]. Atlas coelestis. London: 1729.

First edition of the first star atlas based on telescopic observations; the most important star atlas of the 18th century. The Atlas coelestis was intended as the companion to Flamsteed’s Historiae which was first published in 1712 by the Royal Society's officers Isaac Newton and Edmund Halley, without the author's consent, and first fully published in 1725. Flamsteed was a notorious perfectionist and loathe to publish; he went so far as to destroy all the copies of the 1712 Historiae that he could. Neither the Historiae nor the Atlas were completed in his lifetime, but instead fell to the editorship of his widow and his former assistants. The atlas comprises 27 celestial maps centered on the major constellations visible from the Royal Observatory, Greenwich. See Babson 329.

Folio (530 x 370mm). Engraved frontispiece portrait by George Vertue after Thomas Gibson; engraved title vignette duplicated as headpiece, engraved initial and tail-piece; and 27 engraved double-page celestial maps by James Mynde and Abraham Sharp, plate 14 printed on two double-sheets joined and folded, 24 of which are first edition (3 of the celestial maps [Aquarius, Cetus, and Monocerus] are supplied from a later edition, distinguished by the presence of page numbers in the upper right; soiling to portrait and title, pale dampstain to portrait, repaired tear into text on the last 2 leaves of preface, pl. 14 with repaired folds and right margin, pl. 15 with repaired tears and edge-wear, “Sagittarius” headline shaved, fingersoiling and other light stains). Old marbled boards with vellum corners (very rubbed, rebacked in calf, stubs renewed).