His map was later superseded by those of Giovanni Schiaparelli and Eugène Antoniadi and his nomenclature was dropped (for instance, his "Kaiser Sea" became Syrtis Major Planum).

[4] Proctor then read for the bar, but turned to astronomy and authorship instead, and in 1865 published an article on the Colours of Double Stars in the Cornhill Magazine.

This work contains an elaborate account of the phenomena presented by the planet; but although favourably received by astronomers, it had no great sale.

He intended to follow it up with similar treatises on Mars, Jupiter, Sun, Moon, comets and meteors, stars, and nebulae, and had in fact commenced a monograph on Mars, when the failure of a New Zealand bank deprived him of an independence which would have enabled him to carry out his scheme without anxiety as to its commercial success or failure.

Being thus obliged to depend upon his writings for the support of his family, and having learned by the fate of his Saturn and its System that the general public are not attracted by works requiring arduous study, he cultivated a more popular style.

He wrote for a number of periodicals; and although he has stated that he would at this time willingly have turned to stone-breaking on the roads, or any other form of hard and honest but unscientific labour, if a modest competence had been offered him in any such direction, he attained a high degree of popularity, and his numerous works had a wide influence in familiarising the public with the main facts of astronomy.

Proctor's literary standing meantime improved, and he became a regular contributor to The Intellectual Observer, Chamber's Journal and the Popular Science Review.

This was followed by a long series of popular treatises in rapid succession, amongst the more important of which are Light Science for Leisure Hours and The Sun (1871); The Orbs around Us and Essays on Astronomy (1872); The Expanse of Heaven, The Moon and The Borderland of Science (1873); The Universe and the Coming Transits and Transits of Venus (1874); Our Place among Infinities (1875); Myths and Marvels of Astronomy (1877); The Universe of Stars (1878); Flowers of the Sky (1879); The Poetry of Astronomy (1880); Easy Star Lessons and Familiar Science Studies (1882); Mysteries of Time and Space (1883) - Digital Copy; "The Great Pyramid" (1883) - Digital Copy; The Universe of Suns (1884); The Seasons (1885); Other Suns than Ours and Half-Hours with the Stars (1887).

[9] Proctor's largest and most ambitious work, Old and New Astronomy, left unfinished at his death, was completed by Arthur Cowper Ranyard and published in 1892[10] with a second edition in 1895.