28. Bevis, John. Uranographia Britannica. London, ca 1750.
Although many astronomers praised the Flamsteed atlas for its
accuracy, others were unhappy with the unwieldy size and
inelegant plates, and this dissatisfaction is made evident by
John Bevis's decision in 1745 to publish a new English star
atlas, and to base it on Bayer, rather than Flamsteed. Bevis
succeeded in having the plates engraved for his atlas, and even
managed to have a star catalog printed. But the bankruptcy of
his printer resulted in the plates being sequestered by the
courts, and the Bevis Uranographia, as it was to have been
called, was never published. Fortunately, a number of
impressions were printed from the plates before they
disappeared, and nearly all of these pre-publication sets--some
sixteen in all--are still preserved in various libraries around
the world. When one compares the Bevis atlas to Bayer's
Uranometria, it is apparent that Bevis followed the plan of the
Bayer atlas excactly. There are the same number of plates, of t