Books published by publisher Goemaere Press

This early work by Wilkie Collins was originally published in 1852. Born in Marylebone, London in 1824, Collins' family enrolled him at the Maida Hill Academy in 1835, but then took him to France and Italy with them between 1836 and 1838. Returning to England, Collins attended Cole's boarding school, and completed his education in 1841, after which he was apprenticed to the tea merchants Antrobus & Co. in the Strand. In 1846, Collins became a law student at Lincoln's Inn, and was called to the bar in 1851, although he never practiced. It was in 1848, a year after the death of his father, that he published his first book, The Memoirs of the Life of William Collins, Esq., R.A., to good reviews. The 1860s saw Collins' creative high-point, and it was during this decade that he achieved fame and critical acclaim, with his four major novels, The Woman in White (1860), No Name (1862), Armadale (1866) and The Moonstone (1868). The Moonstone, meanwhile is seen by many as the first true detective novel - T. S. Eliot called it "the first, the longest, and the best of modern English detective novels...in a genre invented by Collins and not by Poe." Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions.

Introduction: The intention of the following treatise is to furnish the possessors of ordinary telescopes with plain directions for their use, and a list of objects for their advantageous employment. None but an eye-witness of the wonder and glory of the heavens can thoroughly understand how much they lose by description, or how inadequate an idea of them can be gathered in the usual mode, from books and lectures. It is but the narrative of the traveller instead of the direct impression of the scene. To do justice to this noble science, - to appreciate as we ought the magnificent testimony which it bears to the external Power and Godhead of him 'Who by his excellent wisdom made the heavens,' we must study it, as much as may be, not with the eyes of others, but with our own......Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900's and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, mode