19th century

The 19th century functions as more than a historical backdrop: the book’s note to the reader makes the era’s firmament part of its interpretive framework, insisting that celestial positions be understood through astronomy and precession rather than popular zodiac conventions.

The era’s celestial frame

The note explains that precession has shifted the vernal equinox, the astrological equivalent of the Greenwich meridian. In the Southern Hemisphere, the corresponding equinox is autumnal. The equinox formerly occurred with the Sun in Aries, the first sign; it now occurs with the Sun in Pisces, the twelfth. The book therefore treats the nineteenth-century sky as a material historical condition, not a timeless astrological diagram.

Pisces and the limits of popular convention

Because of that shift, each zodiacal sign occurs approximately a month later than popular information would suggest. The note presents this correction as a matter of fidelity to the era’s sky, while associating the Age of Pisces with mirrors, tenacity, instinct, twinship, and hidden things. The 19th century is thus connected to the book’s recurring interest in concealed relations and doubles, while the note’s confidence in the influence of the infinite sky leaves its astronomical clarification in conversation with astrological belief.