LUNAR

All three items in good condition, on lightly aged paper. ONE: 4 December 1821. 3pp., 12mo. Bifolium. The letter, which concerns her plans for a book, begins: 'My dear Sir | In consequence of your opinion, I send a prospectus for Mr. Dawes [the critic Manassah Dawes (d.1829)?], which you will have the goodness to forward at a proper opportunity. But for this opinion, I should not have had the courage to apply to him, though the refusal of two persons ought not to prevent the application to a third. Nothing in my opinion could have been more certain than the subscriptions of Mr.

Corrie was the son of Rev. Josiah Corrie (1725-1800) of Kenilworth. He was educated at Daventry Academy and New College, Hackney. He was a schoolmaster and a Unitarian minister at the Old Meeting House (1817-19), and president of the Birmingham Philosophical Society, to which, in 1819, he introduced Maria Edgeworth, who notes in a letter her admiration for his 'very agreeable benevolent countenance, most agreeable voice'. In William Field's memoir of Dr Samuel Parr he is numbered among the 'clerical friends' in whose company Parr 'delighted'.

Folio, 1 p. Text clear and complete. Lightly-aged and creased. Remains of red wafer in left margin. Folded into a packet, and docketed on reverse 'Case for Mr. Wheler | 1 G[uine]a. | Martin & Hay for Nevill'. The upper half of the document consists of eighteen lines in the hand of the enquirer (presumably one of a firm of solicitors named 'Martin & Hay", acting for one 'Nevill'), with the last two lines posing the question; the lower half consists of fifteen lines in Wheler's hand, signed by him 'Frans Wheler', and dated by him in the bottom left-hand corner.

English astronomer (1819-92) whose mathematical prediction of the existence of Neptune anticipated Le Verrier's discovery of that planet. Octavo. Unbound. Ten leaves and one blank. Paginated [35]-53. Very good. Five pages of text (35-9), four tables (pp.40-3) and a set of 'Tables containing the corrections to be applied to the values of the moon's equatorial horizontal parallax given in the nautical almanacs 1840-1855, in order to make them agree with those calculated from Mr. Adams' tables.' (pp.46-53). One small closed tear to antepenultimate leaf.

Burckhardt (1773-1825) was a German astronomer, who first computed the orbits of a number of comets. First and only edition. Quarto. Pages: viii + 88. A rare survival, but in very poor condition: grubby, creased, stained and frayed at edges. In remains of makeshift wraps. Text perfectly legible throughout. Some scholarly annotations in pencil and pen.