Copernicus: Full Bibliography

Recommended Reading

Crowe, Michael J. Theories of the World from Antiquity to the Copernican Revolution. New York 1990

John North, The Fontana History of Astronomy and Cosmology, London 1994, 279-95

John D. North, 'The reluctant revolutionaries. Astronomy after Copernicus', Studia Copernicana 13 (1975), 169-84

Robert S. Westman, 'Proof, poetics, and patronage: Copernicus's preface to the De revolutionibus', in R. S. Westman and D. C. Lindberg, Reappraisals of the Scientific Revolution, Cambridge 1990, pp. 167-205

Other Texts

Copernicus, Nicholas. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), trans. Edward Rosen. Baltimore 1978

Copernicus, Nicolas. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium. (On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres), trans. A.M. Duncan. Newton Abbot 1976

Owen Gingerich, 'The role of Erasmus Reinhold and the Prutenic Tables in the dissemination of Copernican Theory', Studia Copernicana 6(1973), 43-62

Owen Gingerich and J. Dobrzycki, 'The master of the 1550 radices: Jofrancus Offusius' Journal of the History of Astronomy, 24 (1993), 235-53

Owen Gingerich and Robert S. Westman, 'The Wittich Connection: conflict and priority in late sixteenth-century cosmology', Transactions of the American Philosophical Society, 78-7 (1988)

Richard Lemay, 'The late medieval astrological school at Cracow and the Copernican system' Studia Copernicana 16 (1978), 337-54

D. J. K. O'Connell, 'Copernicus and Calendar Reform', Studia Copernicana 13 (1973), 189-202

[Ptolemy, Claudius.] Ptolemy's Almagest, trans. G. J. Toomer. New York 1984

Edward Rosen, 'Copernicus', Dictionary of Scientific Biography vols 3 & 4, New York 1981, 401-11

Noel M. Swerdlow, 'Annals of scientific publishing: Johannes Petreius' letter to Rheticus', Isis 83 (1992), 270-74

Taub, Liba. Ptolemy's Universe: The Natural Philosophical and Ethical Foundations of Ptolemy's Astronomy. Chicago 1993

Robert S. Westman, 'The Melanchthon Circle, Rheticus and the Wittenberg Interpretation of the Copernican Theory', Isis 88 (1975), 164-93, for the seminal statement on the 'Wittenberg Interpretation'.

Almost all primary sources of and relating to Copernicus are now available in English: Nicholas Copernicus, Complete Works, 3 vols, London, Warsaw and Cracow, ed. P. Czartorzyski, tr. E. Rosen, 1972-85. The first volume is the facsimile of the manuscript of the Revolutions, vol. 2 the English translation of the Revolutions, and vol. 3 contains English translations of all other known works by Copernicus. For a definitive edition of the 'Commentariolus', see Noel M. Swerdlow, 'The derivation and first draft of Copernicus' Planetary Theory: A translation of the commentariolus with commentary', Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 117 (1973), 423-512.

The publication is imminent of the world Census of the De Revolutionibus conducted by Owen Gingerich, but preliminary results may be found in his The Great Copernicus Chase and other adventures in astronomical history, Cambridge, 1992.

Copernicus' own copy of the Alfonsine Tables is extant, see Pawel Czartoryski, 'The Library of Copernicus', Studia Copernicana, 16 (1978)