When Bernard de Fontenelle published the first edition of his Entretiens sur la Pluralite des Mondes in 1686, it was an immediate success. In an age when women, even those from the richest and most distinguished families, received little or no formal education, it offered an entertaining and accessible introduction to astronomy and some of the burning topics of the day. Does the earth really go around the sun? Are there other inhabited planets out there? If so, are the inhabitants like us or quite different? Is the moon itself inhabited? Is even the sun inhabited? Are there volcanoes on the moon? How hot is mercury? How long is a Venusian day? Will flying machines one day take us to the moon? Providing new notes, some illustrations and an introduction, this new Tiger of the Stripe edition is based on the 1808 edition of Elizabeth Gunning's translation, retaining the charm which was so essential for the book's success. Miss Gunning, a beautiful and talented novelist with a rather racy personal life, drew on an annotated French edition by the distinguished French astronomer, Jerome de Lalande. This edition thus offers an interesting accretion of ideas, ranging from Fontenelle's 1686 edition and later revisions, Lalande's (sometimes rather critical) comments, Gunning's appropriately flowery translation, and our own explanations for the modern reader. It is, without doubt, a little gem.

This Book Is In Dutch. Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to the blurring of the original text.

This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923. This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ++++ The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to ensure edition identification: ++++ Histoire Des Mathematiques, Volume 3; Histoire Des Mathematiques; Jean Etienne Montucla Jean etienne Montucla, Joseph Jerome Le Francais de Lalande Henri Agasse, 1802

This Book Is In Dutch. Due to the very old age and scarcity of this book, many of the pages may be hard to read due to the blurring of the original text.