These editions (1842-1920) are fascinating for the immediacy of John Dee's accounts of his life as a Renaissance scholar.

Excerpt from Lists of Manuscripts: Formerly Owned By, Dr. John Dee In 1842 J. O. Halliwell edited for the Camden Society a volume entitled The Diary of Dr. John Dee. To the diary itself, which extends with considerable gaps over the years (1554) 1577 to 1601, he appended the catalogue of Dee's manuscript library, taken from an autograph MS. in the Gale Collection at Trinity College, Cambridge (O. 4. 20). This catalogue it is my purpose to reprint here, and to furnish what information I can about the books entered in it. Bibliographers will readily agree that this is worth doing. They will remember that Dee was not merely an alchemist and spiritualist, but a really learned man, and one who had done his best, by petitions and otherwise, to stimulate interest in the rescuing of MSS. from the dissolved monastic libraries and to induce the sovereign to establish a central national collection of them. They will also be aware that we have but very few sixteenth-century English catalogues of manuscript collections, and that the investigation of the destinies of a dispersed library may be made to throw much light upon the formation of the collections which still exist. It will be as well, before we embark upon the examination of the catalogue, to have before us the leading dates in the life of the owner of the books. John Dee was born in 1527. When the Diary begins, we find him living at Mortlake. In 1583 (on September 21) he left England, with the impostor Edward Kelly, for Bohemia and Poland, whence, after a most unsuccessful and detrimental sojourn, he returned to Mortlake in December 1589. In 1595 he was made Warden of Manchester College (now the cathedral): in 1604 he came back to Mortlake; and in 1608 he died there in poverty. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Discovered in a hidden compartment of an old chest long after his death, the secret writings of John Dee, one of the leading scientists and occultists of Elizabethan England, record in minute detail his research into the occult. Dee concealed his treatises on the nature of humankind's contact with angelic realms and languages throughout his life, and they were nearly lost forever. In his brief biography of John Dee, Joseph Peterson calls him a "true Renaissance man"? detailing his work in astronomy, mathematics, navigation, the arts, astrology, and the occult sciences. He was even thought to be the model for Shakespeare's Prospero. All this was preparation for Dee's main achievement: five books, revealed and transcribed between March 1582 and May 1583, bringing to light mysteries and truths that scholars and adepts have been struggling to understand and use ever since. These books detail his system for communicating with the angels, and reveal that the angels were interested in and involved with the exploration and colonization of the New World, and in heralding in a new age or new world order. While Dee's influence was certainly felt in his lifetime, his popularity has grown tremendously since. His system was used and adapted by the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, and subsequently by Aleister Crowley. This new edition of John Dee's Five Books of Mystery is by far the most accessible and complete published to date. Peterson has translated Latin terms and added copious footnotes, putting the instructions and references into context for the modern reader.

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