WARD, Mary. The Microscope, or Descriptions of Various Objects of Especial Interest and Beauty, Adapted for Microscopic Observation. With Directions for the Arrangement of a Microscope, and the Collection and Mounting of Objects. Illustrated by the Author’s Original Drawings.

Third Edition. London: Groombridge and Sons, 1869. Small octavo (18 × 13cm). pp. [2], vi, 154, [2]. With a colour frontispiece and seven further colour plates, together with numerous wood-engraved illustrations in the text. Bound in contemporary full red calf by Relfe Brothers, London, their stamp on front blank; boards ruled and decorated in gilt, spine richly gilt in compartments, marbled endpapers and edges, ribbon marker. Prize bookplate of Heversham Grammar School on front pastedown. Some rubbing and bumping to extremities, spine slightly faded, front board very slightly warped; occasional light spotting and toning, otherwise a very good attractive copy.

An appealing copy of the third edition of this beautifully illustrated work by the pioneering Irish microscopist and scientific writer Mary Ward (1827–1869), published in the year of her tragic death.

Born Mary King at Ballylin, near Ferbane, Co. Offaly, Ward developed an exceptional interest in microscopy, astronomy and the natural sciences at a time when women had very limited access to formal scientific education. A talented draughtswoman as well as an accomplished microscopist, she illustrated her scientific works from her own observations. The eight attractive colour plates in the present volume are derived from her original drawings.

Written to introduce the wonders of microscopy to the general reader, The Microscope describes an extraordinary variety of objects suitable for examination, including insects and their wings, fish scales, feathers, crystals and microscopic animal life, while also giving practical instructions on arranging a microscope and collecting and mounting specimens. Ward deliberately adopted an accessible approach intended to encourage readers who might otherwise have been intimidated by more technical scientific treatises.

Her importance in the history of Irish science is considerable. Ward was associated with the remarkable scientific circle surrounding her cousins, the Parsons family of Birr Castle, whose great telescope, the celebrated ‘Leviathan of Parsonstown’, was for many years the largest telescope in the world.

The year of publication gives this edition particular poignancy. On 31 August 1869, aged only forty-two, Mary Ward was killed near Parsonstown (Birr) when she fell from an experimental steam-powered vehicle constructed by members of the Parsons family and was struck by one of its wheels. She is generally recognised as the first recorded person in the world to die in a motor vehicle accident.

A handsome nineteenth-century copy of an important work in the popularisation of science, written and illustrated by one of Ireland’s most remarkable pioneering women scientists.

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