William Tyler Olcott (1873-1936) was almost certainly the greatest writer of books on star lore and star observation in the first half of the twentieth century. He was already thirty-two years old when he had the life-altering experience of being shown the stars and constellations by a family friend while on vacation in the summer of 1905. Just two years later, he published his first book on astronomy, Field Book of the Stars. In 1911 he helped found the AAVSO (American Association of Variable Star Observers), and for many years thereafter was the leading light in this organization of amateur astronomers, whose millions of observations have contributed far more to the advancement of science than any other amateur effort. Olcott’s career as a writer climaxed in 1929 with the publication of his classic Field Book of the Skies, a work that informed and inspired generations of skywatchers until well beyond mid-century.
Field Book of the Skies can still be found in quite a few libraries (especially the little yellow 1950s edition, which I discovered as a child and have on my shelf today). Olcott’s other books, however, are now rare. That is unfortunate because Olcott always wrote with the same potent optimism and enthusiasm, with the same calm assurance and humility, and with an ideal mixture of poetic sensibility and scientific attention to organization and detail. He also had—or rather, has, for his writing lives on—a sense of exactly what does and doesn’t need to be presented, whether it be in his maps or in his prose.
It is, therefore, with great delight that I welcome Dover Publications’ reprint of the book you now hold in your hand—Star Lore of All Ages.
The myths and legends that appear in Star Lore of All Ages will, of course, never become outdated, and in Olcott they have arguably found their most felicitous teller and commentator. Olcott acknowledges in his prefatory note to this 1911 book that he derived much information from R. H. Allen’s Star Names and Their Meanings, the most extensive scholarly effort ever made to research the origins of star and constellation names and the lore related to those names. Allen’s book, still available from Dover Publications under the title Star Names: Their Lore and Meaning, is a pretty good read for those of us deeply fascinated by the origin and history of star names, even though it contains passages heavy with variant spellings of names and discussion of confusing uncertainties. There is no doubt, however, that Olcott’s less scholarly book is a more diverting entertainment—partly because it offers, compared to Allen’s, far more recounting of lore than analysis of names. There is, moreover, plenty of material in Star Lore of All Ages derived from sources Allen doesn’t use. In addition, Olcott offers different perspectives on some of the material that appears in both books. And Olcott has far more to tell us about the beauties of celestial sights and the joys of observing them. All in all, both books complement each other very well. I would recommend Olcott first to beginners, but he does his job so well that I predict those who read Star Lore of All Ages will then want to obtain the Allen book and mine it for much additional information about names and other lore.
The charm, backed by careful learning, exhibited in Olcott’s writing, and his gift for saying—originally and memorably—precisely what needs to be said, is suggested by the title of his 1909 book In Starland with a Three-Inch Telescope. A person who thought the flight of fancy implied by the first part of the title might suggest a book of empty vaporizings can be reassured by the second part of the title, which implies careful observation. Olcott may have been a cultured person who often appealed to the spirit of fancy—he even wrote poetry—(rather creditable stuff, by the way), but he was also the man who successfully mentored innumerable beginners in the meticulous regimen of variable star observation. In his work, imagination and fact, storytelling and analysis, coexisted in an effective and happy balance.
You don’t have to take my word for these qualities of Olcott. You will find them all displayed in full flower in this book—though in a work on lore, of course, you will see more of Olcott’s fanciful side. Whether your initial interest in coming to this book was astronomy or mythology, or both, you are about to enter a state of enchantment from which you will emerge both edified and lastingly inspired.