Gradient Books › First English Editions
The astronomer whose observations changed forever the way we imagined Mars, in his own words.
Giovanni Schiaparelli is remembered today for his observations of the canali of Mars—the markings that, after being rendered into English as "canals," helped inspire decades of speculation about an inhabited Martian world. But Schiaparelli himself was a more careful and intriguing thinker than the legend that grew around his discoveries.
Life on the Planet Mars brings together three essays Schiaparelli published in the Milanese journal Natura ed Arte in 1893, 1895, and 1909. In them, one of the nineteenth century's greatest observational astronomers considers what could actually be known about Mars, what its surface features might mean, and—most fascinatingly—what forms of life might conceivably exist there.
The first essay appeared briefly in English in 1894, in a translation by W. H. Pickering. The full collection, to the publisher's knowledge, has never before been made available in English. Together they reveal Schiaparelli not merely as the man behind the Martian "canals," but as a scientist following evidence up to (and beyond?) the boundary where observation gives way to imagination.
Written at the moment when Mars was becoming a world rather than merely a point of light, these essays offer a remarkable window into the birth of modern speculation about extraterrestrial life.
This edition presents all three essays in a new English translation, accompanied by Schiaparelli's original maps and illustrations and a new Gradient Books introduction.
Now available on Amazon Kindle.
