London, The Royal Society, 1785. Large 4to (25.5 x 19.0 cm). Engraved title page, vii, 212 pp. Original grey front wrapper.

After discovering moons around Saturn and Uranus, Herschel turned his attention from the planets to the stars, and drew up two catalogues of double stars that he demonstrated were orbiting pairs. This is Herschel's important second catalogue, listing 434 double stars discovered since the delivery of his first catalogue. Published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, Volume LXXV part 1. This is the section from the preliminaries up to page 212, with the Herschel paper on pp. 40-126, plus a foldout plate. This volume contains several other imporant articles, mainly astronomical, such as: Pigott, Observations of a new variable star; Cavallo, Astronomical observations of M. de Zach; Goodricke, Observations of a new variable star, but also other important scientific contributions such as: Erasmus Darwin, An account of an artificial spring of water, Lightfoot, An account of an English bird of the Genus Motacilla; Anderson, An account of Morne Garou, a Mountain in the Island of St. Vincent, with a description of the Volcano on its summit. Uncut. No spine cover, but binding present, though weak. Contents clean, unmarked. In all, a very good copy. Not in Houzeau & Lancaster.