An Easy Guide to the Constellations, with a Miniature Atlas of the Stars and Key Maps

First edition, undated. 12mo (6 x 4.5 inches); 52pp, [9]. Previous owner's signature to pastedown, J. Rogers, dated Sept. 13, 1856. Very Good+ with slight bowing to the slim volume, resulting in stress to the front joint, beginning to fray at the spine head. Illustrated with astronomical charts and lush diagrams of the constellations suspended in deep blue space. The cyanotype was invented by John Herschel in 1842 and popularized through the following decade by Anna Atkins, whose albums of botanical cyanotypes are regarded as the first photographically illustrated book. The immediacy of Atkins’ cyanotypes, providing the viewer with an intimate and unaltered image of the natural forms, may have inspired Gall’s unusual plates. He and his father both pursued innovative printing methods for the aid of the blind, using embossed scripts and embedding twine to aid their reading. Printer, clergyman, and polymath, Gall authored 3 map projections in his work as a cartographer. Most notably, his