A writer educated at home
Giberne was born in Belgaum, India, in 1845, the daughter of an East India Company army officer. Educated at home, she began making stories with her sisters while young. Writing became a long career encompassing novels, religious and moral fiction, biography and accessible science.
Her interest in astronomy produced Sun, Moon and Stars: Astronomy for Beginners in 1879. Oxford astronomer Charles Pritchard supplied an appreciative introduction after reading the proofs. She also participated in the amateur astronomical community, becoming a founding member of the British Astronomical Association in 1890. Her books helped give readers outside professional science a way into its questions.
A journey outward from Earth
The Story of the Sun, Moon, and Stars begins by changing the scale of a familiar home. Earth becomes one member of a planetary family, and the explanation moves outward towards stars. In discussing spectroscopy, Giberne links the coloured lines of an experiment with the possibility of identifying material far away. The illustrated expanded edition held here reflects the discoveries and physical models of its period. Its changing inventory of moons and explanations of stellar structure also show how rapidly the subject continued to develop.
