AN INTRODUCTION TO ASTROLOGY
Book Details + Condition: Sherwood, Gilbert, and Piper (London). First Edition thus of this format, 1835. Very scarce in this edition. Hardcover. 342 pages, with printer's advertisements to end. Illustrated. Includes Appendix of "Explantation of the Hieroglyphics", or astrological symbols. Full title: AN INTRODUCTION TO ASTROLOGY; BY WILLIAM LILLY: BEING THE WHOLE OFTHAT AUTHOR’S RULES FOR THE PRACTICE OF HORARY ASTROLOGY, DIVESTED OF THE SUPERSTITIONS OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY: IN WHICH ARE ADDED, NUMEROUS EMENDATIONS, ADAPTED TO THE IMPROVED STATE OF THE SCIENCE IN THE PRESENT DAY. "Christian Astrology" is the most significant work of the foremost 17th-century English astrologer, William Lilly (1602 - 1681), who famously predicted the Great Fire of London in 1666. It is renowned as the most definitive work on horary astrology ever written in English. The "Christian" part of the title was most likely incorporated to protect the author from suggestions that he was a heretic dabbling in the diabolic arts. The book was first published in 1647, and there was a second edition in 1659. It was later published in this edition and format, in 1835.
By Zadkiel (Richard James Morrison), one of the fundamental astrologers responsible for the contemporary revival of astrology in the Western world. His core foundational books, including The Hand Book of Astrology, which is still used to this day, helped in the return of the science. He became interested in astrology through R.C. Smith, better known under his pen name, Raphael. Morrison adopted the pen name Zadkiel and began an astrological almanac, The Herald of Astrology.
An increasingly scarce work with firm binding; rubbed corners and edges; light shelf wear to boards; chafed spine ends (book has a solid 19th-century rebinding job). Original front endpapers and frontispiece page are heavily chipped at edges, with antique c. 1900 occult-related newspaper cuttings glued in (astrology-related); frontispiece is delicately laid/glued-in, perhaps an issue with the antique rebinding job; chipping to page edges of pp 15 & 16; interior is clean and free of markings.
