In the original dustsheet. Brown cloth binding with gilt title on the spine.

• F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available.

A simply brilliant book. If you never realised what a really big deal longitude is, you should read this. It’s not overly technical, and a very accessible piece of written history that isn’t even a tiny bit as dull as the title might seem to suggest. I can recommend the companion piece, which is a beautiful book with illustrations and detailed pictures of Harrison’s amazing and beautiful machines. You can see these things for yourself in the Royal Observatory at Greenwich in London, the home of the prime meridian.

Reviews:

• This book should be required reading for all schools. It reminds us all that technology which we take for granted in the last 30 years was not always available. The people who strove to understand Longitude were amazing pioneers, and this book explains why. Well researched and refreshingly written, it is a must read book!

• Light concise very readable little book dealing in general with the development of ways in which to determine one’s longitude. The book concentrates on the life and times of John Harrison – a carpenter who went on to design and build a succession of precision clocks capable of withstanding conditions at sea.

The author, Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947, The Bronx, New York) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include Longitude, about English clockmaker John Harrison, and Galileo’s Daughter, about Galileo’s daughter Maria Celeste.

Dava Sobel (born June 15, 1947) is an American writer of popular expositions of scientific topics. Her books include Longitude, about English clockmaker John Harrison; Galileo’s Daughter, about Galileo’s daughter Maria Celeste; and The Glass Universe: How the Ladies of the Harvard Observatory Took the Measure of the Stars about the Harvard Computers