Urania's Mirror

random

Urania’s Mirror (ianridpath.com) Urania’s Mirror is a boxed set of 32 constellation cards first published by Samuel Leigh of the Strand, London, in November 1824. An advertisement and review in the The London Literary Gazette for 1824 November 27 describes them as ‘fitted up in an elegant box’ and selling for £1 8s black and white or £1 14s ‘beautifully coloured’. They were described as ‘An acceptable present’ so no doubt the publication was timed to catch the Christmas market. The engraver was Sidney Hall but authorship was coyly attributed to ‘a lady’.

Urania’s Mirror (Wikipedia) Urania’s Mirror; or, a view of the Heavens is a set of 32 astronomical star chart cards, first published in November 1824. They are illustrations based on Alexander Jamieson’s A Celestial Atlas, but the addition of holes punched in them allow them to be held up to a light to see a depiction of the constellation’s stars. They were engraved by Sidney Hall, and were said to be designed by “a lady”, but have since been identified as the work of the Reverend Richard Rouse Bloxam, an assistant master at Rugby School.