LALANDE, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de (1732-1807). Ladies' Astronomy. Translated from the French ... by Mrs. W. Pengree, London, 1815, 12mo, engraved frontispiece and plate, contemporary calf. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH. RARE.

LALANDE, Joseph Jérôme Lefrançois de (1732-1807).  Ladies' Astronomy. Translated from the French ... by Mrs. W. Pengree. London: "Printed for Darton, Harvey, and Darton," 1815. 12mo (134 x 85mm). Engraved frontispiece of the moon and an armillary sphere, plate, tables, errata leaf at the end (some light browning and spotting). Attractively bound in contemporary tree calf, the spine lettered and decorated in gilt with black bands (extremities rubbed). Provenance: Sigurd von Numers (modern signature on the front free endpaper; please see note to lot 304); old illegible signature and old bookseller's stamp on front pastedown. FIRST EDITION IN ENGLISH of a work that was first published in Paris in 1785 under the title "Astronomie des Dames". In its "Historical Preface", translated here for this English edition by the elusive "Mrs Pengree", the author, having itemised numerous examples of eminent women astronomers through the ages - from Hypatia to Caroline Herschel, and including his own niece Marie-Jeanne Françoise de Lalande - concludes, "We have here given sufficient instances of females who have distinguished themselves, even under every disadvantage of education and prejudice, to convince us that their abilities are not inferior, even to those of our sex who have attained the highest celebrity in the sciences." RARE.