8vo. vi, [2], 305pp, [1]. With an engraved frontispiece. Handsomely contemporary prize binding, gilt-tooled tree-calf, contrasting red morocco lettering-piece, lettered in gilt to upper board: 'Friern Barnet Grammar School', marbled edges. A trifle rubbed, spine sunned. Marbled endpapers, inked prize inscription to front blank fly-leaf.

A work on astronomy by Richard A. Proctor (1837-1888), most recognised for producing an early map of Mars in 1867, and subsequently lending his name to a crater on the Red Planet. Achieving respectable literary standing through his scientific works, he would later found the magazine Knowledge, and would pen the articles on astronomy in the American Cyclopaedia and the ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica.