This early work by Frank Schlesinger was originally published in 1940 and we are now republishing it with a brand new introductory biography. 'Catalogue of Bright Stars 1940' is a list of stars published during the author's time at Yale University. Frank Schlesinger was born on 11th May 1871 in New York City, USA. Schlesinger attended the College of the City of New York, graduating in 1890, before becoming a special student in astronomy at Columbia University in 1894. His work there led to a fellowship and he received his Ph.D in 1898. Due to his major contributions to the field of astronomy, he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1927), the Bruce Medal (1929), and there is even a crater on the Moon named after him.