The Unsung Journalist and the Origin of the Telescope

First Edition, First Printing. One of 70 copies printed for the Rounce & Coffin Club. Very rare thus. Near fine in original red printed, stapled wrappers. A fantastic slice of history. 

By famous Galileo scholar, Stillman Drake. Includes small facsimile reprint of Ambassades du Roy de Siam Envoye a L'Excellence du Prince Maurice, the obscure newsletter published one week after the 1608 Dutch patent application for the first telescope submitted by Hans Lipperhey of Middleburg, that is the first printed record to spread word of the invention which quickly thereafter had begun to transform the world. Thin octavo. 5.625 x 8.75 in. 19 + [1] pp.