The Mirror of Alchemy: Alchemical Ideas and Images in Manuscripts and Books from Antiquity to the 17th Century

The mythical history of alchemy situates its origins before the Fall, when Adam was believed to have possessed a unique knowledge of the secrets of nature, including that of the Philosophers' stone. The earliest alchemical texts survive from Greek antiquity, and from then until the rise of chemistry, towards the end of the seventeenth century, alchemists engaged in an attempt to recover the perfect knowledge of a previous golden age.

The theories and iconography of alchemy inform much of the thought, literature, and visual arts of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance; Chaucer, Donne, Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson were particularly well versed in alchemy, and many alchemical operations and technicalities were sufficiently commonplace to permeate the language of the poetry and drama of the time.

Gareth Roberts provides an introduction to the history, concepts, terms, and presuppositions of western European alchemy, as well as discussing the works of individual alchemists and the characteristically metaphorical and paradoxical languages they employed. With a wealth of illustrations in colour and black and white, drawn from the outstanding collection of alchemical manuscripts and printed books in the British Library, The Mirror of Alchemy is a fascinating survey of the subject for anyone interested in medieval and Renaissance thought and culture.