# Is "De revolutionibus orbium coelestium" by Nicolaus Copernicus a First Edition?

> **Quick answer.** A first edition of De revolutionibus orbium coelestium by Nicolaus Copernicus (Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg, 1543) is identified by: Nuremberg [Norimbergae]: Johannes Petreius, 1543, folio — the census claim is confirmed. Nuremberg 1543 is the true first; there is no UK-vs-US and no vernacular precedence question, the work being Latin from a German press.

**Checklist — a true first has these:**
- Nuremberg [Norimbergae]: Johannes Petreius, 1543, folio — the census claim is confirmed
- Collation: 6 preliminary leaves plus 196 numbered leaves, with over 140 woodcut diagrams in the text (counts in the sources consulted vary between 142 and 147, so no exact figure should be published)
- Colophon: 'Norimbergae apud Ioh
- Petreium, Anno M. D. XLIII.' The defining textual point is the unsigned preface 'Ad lectorem de hypothesibus huius operis', which stands before Copernicus's own dedication to Pope Paul III: it was written by Andreas Osiander, the Nuremberg Lutheran who supervised the printing after Rheticus left for Leipzig, inserted without Copernicus's knowledge, and it recasts heliocentrism as a mere calculating hypothesis
- Kepler later exposed the authorship
- The words 'orbium coelestium' in the title were likewise added at Nuremberg, not by Copernicus
- Publisher imprint reads Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg

| | |
|---|---|
| Author | Nicolaus Copernicus |
| Publisher | Johannes Petreius, Nuremberg |
| Year | 1543 |
| True first | UK edition |
| Format | Hardcover (trade) |
| Key point | Nuremberg [Norimbergae]: Johannes Petreius, 1543, folio — the census claim is confirmed |
| Book-club edition exists? | No |

## Points of issue
Nuremberg [Norimbergae]: Johannes Petreius, 1543, folio — the census claim is confirmed. Collation: 6 preliminary leaves plus 196 numbered leaves, with over 140 woodcut diagrams in the text (counts in the sources consulted vary between 142 and 147, so no exact figure should be published). Colophon: 'Norimbergae apud Ioh. Petreium, Anno M. D. XLIII.' The defining textual point is the unsigned preface 'Ad lectorem de hypothesibus huius operis', which stands before Copernicus's own dedication to Pope Paul III: it was written by Andreas Osiander, the Nuremberg Lutheran who supervised the printing after Rheticus left for Leipzig, inserted without Copernicus's knowledge, and it recasts heliocentrism as a mere calculating hypothesis. Kepler later exposed the authorship. The words 'orbium coelestium' in the title were likewise added at Nuremberg, not by Copernicus. Errata: an errata leaf covering the first 146 folios was issued, and per Gingerich only about 20 percent of copies contain a separately printed later errata leaf — its presence or absence is a recorded copy-level point, not an edition point. Roughly 400-500 copies were printed and the edition did not sell out. Every copy is census-tracked: Owen Gingerich's Annotated Census (2002) locates on the order of 270-280 copies of the 1543 (sources give 276 and 277) and roughly 320-325 of the 1566 — provenance for a genuine copy is therefore documented, and an untraced 'discovery' copy warrants scepticism.

## Is this the true first?
Nuremberg 1543 is the true first; there is no UK-vs-US and no vernacular precedence question, the work being Latin from a German press. Later editions, none of them firsts: Basel, Henricus Petrus, 1566 (second — it also carries the Osiander preface, so the preface alone does not establish a 1543); Amsterdam, Nicolaus Mulerius, 1617 (third). English translations are modern and are first-thus only.

## Telling it from reprints & book-club editions
No book-club era applies. The donor-realistic forms are facsimiles and modern reprints, and these are the tells to check: the numbered, limited facsimile printed in 1943 for the quatercentenary; and the 1972 facsimile from Macmillan / Polish Scientific Publishers / Johnson Reprint Corporation, edited by P. Czartoryski with an introduction by Jerzy Zathey. Modern photographic facsimiles also circulate. Any copy on modern white wove paper, or carrying a modern limitation or colophon leaf, a modern editorial introduction, or a publisher's cloth binding, is a facsimile — not the Petreius sheets. The Great Books of the Western World / Encyclopaedia Britannica set volume is a modern translation, not an edition of the 1543.

## Source
New Mexico Literacy Project — Is *De revolutionibus orbium coelestium* by Nicolaus Copernicus a first edition? https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/first-edition/de-revolutionibus-orbium-coelestium
CC BY 4.0. Part of the Canonical First-Edition Points of Issue dataset (https://newmexicoliteracyproject.org/api/first-edition-titles.json). Last reviewed 2026-07-04.