Popular Lectures on Scientific Subjects (Signed)

xii, 306pp.  Fully bound in tan calf's leather with gilt decorations, five raised bands and red leather title label on spine, school arms gilded on front panel.  All edges marbled.  Marbled endpapers.  12mo.  Leather a little rubbed at corners, spine ends and spine joints and edges, sunned over spine.   Prize presentation plate dated 1883 on front paste down, some mild spotting on first and last few leaves, else internally neat, clean, bright and tight. A signature reading J F W Herschel (John Frederick William Herschel)  has been pasted in on a label opposite the half title but we can establish no evidence of its authenticity; he certainly didn't sign for the book as he died a decade or so before this edition was published.  Nonetheless a handsome and imposing volume and an important work in the popularisation of science in the late Victorian era.