DIGGES, Leonard (c.1515-c.1559) and DIGGES, Thomas (1546-1595), editor. A Prognostication everlasting of ryght good effecte. [London: Printed by the Widow Orwin, 1596.]

"The world hath so long a time beene carried with an opinion of the Earths stabilitie, as the contrarie cannot but bee now very imperswasible..." (N2).

One of the earliest presentations of the Copernican system in English: "A Perfit Description of the Celestiall Orbes" (caption title of the appendix). Thomas Digges, the son of the mathematician Leonard Digges, was a student of John Dee and the first to publish the heliocentric system in English. This honor had long been attributed to the Italian, Giordano Bruno, when he visited England in 1583-1585. However, Thomas Digges published this 19-page paraphrase and woodcut illustration from De revolutionibus in his 1576 edition of the Prognostication as an appendix to his father's work which still offered the Ptolemaic view. Owen Gingerich traced Digges's copy of the second edition Copernicus to Geneva (II.207), in which Digges wrote: "Vulgo opinio Error" (the common opinion is an error). Gingerich also identified the translated portions as book one, chapters 7 to 10. All 16th-century editions are incredibly rare. The only other copy of any edition of the "Perfit Description" with its plate that we trace at auction is the Harrison Horblit - Owen Gingerich copy, sold in these rooms one year ago. See Seymour Chapin, Nicolaus Copernicus 1473-1973. His Revolutions and His Revolution. Lehigh University, 1973, no. 28 (1576 edition; the woodcut used as the cover illustration).

Quarto (268 x 120mm). Woodcut of zodiacal man on title, woodcut folding plate of the Copernican system as p.43), woodcuts and diagrams in text including a repeated geocentric depiction of the cosmos, woodcut initials (heavily trimmed with loss of imprint and several headlines, captions and shoulder notes, other words; tissue-backing and a neat repaired tear to folding plate, corner dampstain to text, burn-damage to top edge of last few leaves). Recent half calf.