Agnes M. Clerke

Agnes Mary Clerke (1842–1907) was an Irish astronomical writer, born in Skibbereen, County Cork, and educated at home and in Italy. Her Popular History of Astronomy during the Nineteenth Century, published in 1885, made her the recognized historian of the new astrophysics and went through four editions; she followed it with The System of the Stars, Problems in Astrophysics and Modern Cosmogonies, and wrote the astronomical articles for the Encyclopaedia Britannica and the Dictionary of National Biography. In 1903 the Royal Astronomical Society elected her an honorary member, a distinction then open to very few women.