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Small 8vo, pp [8], xxxviii, [2], 162, [2, adverts]], half title, folding plate bound as frontispiece and with minor fraying at edge, contemporary mottled calf, sometime plainly and amateurishly rebacked, the lower board with some insect degradation to the surface leather and with fore-edge worn, internally a sound clean copy throughout, FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH, a translation of the first French translation, 'Systeme du monde,' itself an abridgment of Lambert's ground breaking German work on cosmology. Designed for a general rather than scientific readership this small version would have the effect of introducing English readers to an important 18th Century overview of the cosmos, and is thus of considerable cultural significance to Astronomical thinking in the English speaking world. It includes chapters on The Population of the Universe, Inhabitability of Comets, The Milky Way etc. Despite this popular approach the work seems to have sold poorly and is now very rare; ESTC records only the BL copy in UK [but there is another copy in UCL], plus several copies in the USA where the study of the cosmos receives greater attention. Seller Inventory # 28560
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