Bibliophile, Astronomer and Eclipse Chaser Jay M. Pasachoff’s Library to Auction

Christie’s will present Valuable Books in the History of Astronomy from the Collection of Jay M. Pasachoff at a live sale on June 26 which will include many books on eclipses.

A highly regarded professor of astronomy at Williams College for 50 years, Pasachoff (who died in 2022) is reckoned to have seen more total eclipses (39) than anyone in history. He co-authored the major college astronomy textbook along with several popular survey works, and, with the art historian Roberta Olson, Cosmos: The Art and Science of the Universe.

This choice library going under the hammer will also include important books by titans of astronomy including Copernicus, Brahe, Kepler, Galileo, Newton, and Halley. From his very first acquisitions, Pasachoff was intent on acquiring seminal works in the finest condition possible and this collection formed the basis of the exhibition The Heavens Revealed at Williams’ Chapin Library in 2003. 

Highlights include:

• a rare illustrated broadside publication of Edmund Halley's prediction of the area to be affected by the total solar eclipse of April 1715 (estimate: $15,000-25,000)
• work by the Jesuit astronomer Maximillien Höll Ephemerides and Observatio transitus Veneris ante discum solis (estimate: $800-1,200)
• the Important 1765 work by the German polymath Heinrich Lambert, showing patterns of eclipses, Einer neuen und allgemeinen eccliptischen Tafel (estimate: $2,000-3,000)
• Polish royal astronomer, Johannes Hevelius's Mercurius in sole visus Gedani anno Christiano from 1661 (estimate: $15,000-25,000)