The Astrolabes of the World: .... Volume 1 The Eastern Astrolabes Volume 2 The Western Astrolabes

"SINGLE MOST COMPREHENSIVE COMPENDIUM ON THE SUBJECT" - FINE COPY WITH A.L.S. FROM THE AUTHOR
first edition 2 vols. large 4to. (30 x 23 cms.) xviii, [2], iii, [1 (blank)], 304; viii, (305)-609, [1 (printer's slug)]pp., frontispiece plate in each volume plus 153 plates (some folding), 216 figures and photo illustrations through the text, original cream buckram, front covers handsomely gilt blocked with astrolabe design, spines gilt lettered, spine just a trifle darkened, lovely copy.
Autograph letter from Gunther relating to the book loosely inset. Later neat ex-libris stamp of Christopher St J. H. Daniel. Related press clipping and other material also loosely inset.

Rare, according to Charles Batey (printer to the O.U.P.) only 250 sets were ever produced. Acknowledged by Professor Owen Gingerich (1930- ), Research Professor of Astronomy and of the History of Science at Harvard University, as "the single most comprehensive compendium on the subject which everyone seriously interested in astrolabes should own".
Gunther (1869–1940), zoologist and antiquary, initially in parallel with his scientific researches at Oxford University began preoccupied with a vision for a museum of science there. "In 1917 [he] conceived the idea of restoring the Old Ashmolean building to a museum, and his enduring legacy is his foundation there in 1924 of the Museum of the History of Science. In 1915 he had begun cataloging and photographing old or early scientific instruments and specimens which remained, frequently neglected, in college and university departments. This enabled him in 1919 to mount a temporary loan exhibition of early scientific instruments. Inspired by this exhibition, in 1924 Lewis Evans presented his valuable collection of scientific instruments and books to the university as a core around which the university's own material could be gathered for permanent display in the Old Ashmolean building. Gunther was appointed first curator of the Lewis Evans Collection, and so at the age of fifty-five he began a new career. .... In 1936 he was invited to stage an exhibition in Cambridge, similar to his venture in Oxford. This, along with his survey of the sister university's scientific instruments and memorabilia published as Early Science in Cambridge (1937), sowed the seed which became the Whipple Museum of the History of Science. .... Between 1920 and 1937 Gunther published prolifically, largely at his own expense. This included his cornucopia Early Science in Oxford (14 volumes, 1920–45). .... His Oxford Gardens (1912) and more particularly Early British Botanists and their Gardens (1922) established him as one of the great historians of botany. The Astrolabes of the World (1932), a lavishly illustrated catalogue and the first study of its kind in the field of scientific instruments, was completed after an immense correspondence. For all their shortcomings his works are primary source books full of unique material, and remain an indispensable starting point for scholars. Meanwhile, his biographies rescued men such as architect Sir Roger Pratt, botanist John Goodyear, and medieval plant painter Apuleius Barbarus from oblivion. .... Gunther was a pioneer of the new subject of history of science but .. stayed aloof from its mainstream (which was textual and philosophical). He concentrated instead on the 'archaeology of science', which was in practice the history of scientific instruments. He is undoubtedly the principal founder of this specialism as a serious academic discipline" [O.D.N.B.].
Loosely inset is an A.L.S. from Gunther, writing from Magdalen College, Oxford, 12 Dec. 1932 to Mr. Tancock, apparently a master at of Wellington College, sending him a copy of his "illustrated Chaucer" [ie. Gunther's Chaucer on the astrolabe : with the original illustrations , O.U.P., 1931], commenting on the content of that book, and suggesting that "it would be most helpful if a few of the very best schools could take the forthcoming Picture Book of Astrolabes for their Libraries. It would show the mathematicians & physicists the kind of instrument from which all angle-measuring instruments are derived, & with which the ordinary trigonometrical surveying methods were practised in the 16th century when the first 'survey maps' were being made. .... it would be kind if you would consult the Librarian as to whether he could subscribe for a copy, perhaps by some method of payment by instalments".
Christopher St. J. H. Daniel was an eminent sundial designer and President of the British Sundial Society whose work includes the famous dolphin sundial at Greenwich marking the Queen's silver jubilee, the reconstruction of the vertical sundial at the Tower of London and the Sir Francis Drake commemorative stained glass sundial in Buckland Abbey.