Draper, Henry “Facsimile of a Photograph of the Moon, Taken by Dr. Henry Draper’s Telescope”

After a photograph by Henry Draper.  “Facsimile of a Photograph of the Moon, Taken by Dr. Henry Draper’s Telescope”. 

New York: Harper’s Weekly, 1864.  Double folio.  20 1/4 x 13 ½ (image).  Wood engraving.  With fold as issued.   Very good condition.  

Henry Draper (1837-1882) followed in the footsteps of his famous father. He studied medicine and had a passion for astronomical photography. Henry built two observatories at the family home in Hastings-on-Hudson, NY in 1860.  His father, John William Draper, took the first daguerreotypes of the moon in 1840. In 1863 Henry took a series of photographs of the moon that were larger and far more detailed than any taken previously. 

Harper’s Weekly was a New York based newspaper in the last half of the nineteenth and early twentieth century.  In weekly issues, Harper’s presented a mixture of news stories, gossip, poetry, and most notably, wood-engraved illustrations.  These pictures remain one of the best sources for lively, informative images of nineteenth-century America.  With photographs in a primitive stage, and no television, it is through these illustrations that much of the country got its visual information about the events, personalities and places of the time.