Stellar movements and the structure of the universe

London: Macmillan & Co, 1914. FIRST EDITION. With 4 photographic plates, including frontispiece, and numerous text illustrations. Publisher’s original cloth, author and title in blind on front cover and in gilt on spine; an excellent, clean copy with the small ownership signature of W.E. Ravenhall on the fly-leaf. First edition of Eddington’s first published book. He here collects a number of earlier-published articles (the majority from the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society) to summarize the current knowledge in astronomy and cosmology. Of particular interest is his observations on the future path of the science and what needs to be both invented and accomplished. “The cosmological knowledge of the period was summarized and the most challenging problems were delineated, and he clearly declared his preference for the speculation that the spiral nebulae were other galaxies beyond our Milky Way, which was itself a spiral galaxy” (DSB IV p. 279).