John Dee (1527-1608)
London: Constable & Company Ltd, 1909. Very Good. Item #46705
London: Constable & Company Ltd, 1909. First Edition. Octavo (23cm); publisher's green cloth stamped in dark green, gilt-lettered spine, top edge gilt; xvi,342pp.; portrait frontispiece, seven leaves of plates (collated complete). Light shelf wear to cloth margins, corners bumped, contemporary ownership signature in pencil to front free endpaper with neat and extensive notes on front pastedown (also in pencil), scattered toning and foxing to textblock, else Very Good and sound.
The first full length biography of the English occultist, alchemist, and court astronomer to Queen Elizabeth I. "For more than fifty years out of the eighty-one of his life, Dee was famous, even if suspected and looked askance at as clever beyond human interpretation. Then his Queen died..." (p. [1]). According to John Aubrey "the children dreaded him because he was accounted a conjurer" (DNB).
Price: $475.00