{"product_id":"commercial-and-sublime-hsiang-fu-huang-9780822948735","title":"Commercial and Sublime: Popular Astronomy Lectures in Britain, 1780-1860","description":"The astronomy lecturing trade in Britain experienced a theatrical turn in the early 1800s, as practitioners relied on larger and more elaborate visual aids to enhance the scenic and dramatic effects of their traveling spectacles. \u003ci\u003eCommercial and Sublime\u003c\/i\u003e explores this phenomenon in the long nineteenth century, a time when astronomical shows rose in popularity and the lecturing trade developed a commercial side where business, profits, and competition took center stage. Astronomy lecturing during this period, Hsiang-Fu Huang reveals, also heavily exploited the notion of the sublime, where displays and the rhetoric of awe and wonder meant to arouse religious sentiment by pointing to the sublimity of the universe and the Creator behind it. His book explores the various practitioners, sites, curriculums, apparatus, and audiences of popular astronomy lectures in nineteenth-century Britain, focusing specifically on those outside the scientific elite whose commercial endeavors opened up a flourishing market for various types of performances, including Lent shows in theaters, courses in learned or mechanics' institutes, and itinerant lectures around provincial towns and in the surrounding countryside.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAuthor:\u003c\/b\u003e Hsiang-Fu Huang\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-10:\u003c\/b\u003e 0822948737\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eISBN-13:\u003c\/b\u003e 9780822948735\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublisher:\u003c\/b\u003e University of Pittsburgh Press\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eLanguage:\u003c\/b\u003e English\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePublished:\u003c\/b\u003e 01\/06\/2026\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003ePages:\u003c\/b\u003e 336\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eFormat:\u003c\/b\u003e Hardcover","brand":"Hsiang-Fu Huang","offers":[{"title":"Hardcover","offer_id":47202188951807,"sku":"9780822948735","price":120.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0662\/2982\/9887\/files\/img_80094ecb-79e6-4806-942c-9f3bc5e7a4a1.jpg?v=1756819881","url":"https:\/\/www.whiterainbookhouse.com\/products\/commercial-and-sublime-hsiang-fu-huang-9780822948735","provider":"WR Book House","version":"1.0","type":"link"}