Astronomy for everybody; a popular exposition of the wonders of the heavens. This is a scarce antiquarian book. NEWCOMB, SIMON, astronomer; b. 12 March 1835 in Wallace Bridge, N.S., eldest of the seven children of John Burton Newcomb and Emily Prince; m. 4 Aug. 1863 Mary Caroline (Mollie) Hassler in Washington, and they had three daughters; d. there 11 July 1909. Author’s early life: The Newcomb and Prince families had deep New England roots. John Newcomb was an innovative but desperately poor schoolteacher who moved the family to various parts of Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island. Simon’s mother, also a teacher before her children were born, died when he was in his teens. He showed great precocity in mathematics and an interest in astronomy in his youth, but suffered a mental breakdown at about the age of seven and did not attend school regularly thereafter. When the family was at Clements (Clementsport), N.S. (1848–50), his father hired him out as a farm labourer in order to improve his physique and manual dexterity; he found the work distasteful. In 1851, during a visit to his maternal grandfather, “Squire” Thomas Prince, in Bend of Petitcodiac (Moncton), N.B., Simon was apprenticed to a local herbalist. After two years he realized that the doctor was a quack who would teach him nothing, and in September 1853 he fled on foot to Calais, Maine, and worked his passage to Salem, Mass. In later years he looked upon his childhood as an unhappy time spent in a backwater. None the less, he maintained contact with cousins in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Ontario, travelling north on several occasions. On arrival in Salem, Newcomb joined his father, who had moved earlier to seek a teaching position. Although largely self-educated, he was a teacher himself in Maryland during 1854 and 1855. In his leisure time he took up the study of mathematics and science with vigour. Newcomb’s contact with Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and America’s foremost physicist, led to further connections with the scientific community. Newcomb’s popular works include Popular astronomy (New York, 1878), The stars: a study of the universe (New York, 1901), and Astronomy for everybody; a popular exposition of the wonders of the heavens (New York, 1902), all of which went through numerous editions. He also wrote a variety of textbooks on mathematics and astronomy. His popular guides to economics include The ABC of finance; or, the money and labor questions familiarly explained to common people, in short and easy lessons (New York, 1877; another edition appeared there in 1878), Principles of political economy (New York, 1886), and A plain man’s talk on the labor question (New York, 1886).