Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution

Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution
ISBN-10
0674434137
ISBN-13
9780674434134
Category
Alchemists
Pages
348
Language
English
Published
1994
Author
William R. Newman

Description

Reputed to have performed miraculous feats in New Englandrestoring the hair and teeth to an aged lady, bringing a withered peach tree to fruit - Eirenaeus Philalethes was also rumored to be an adept, possessor of the alchemical philosophers' stone. That the man was merely a mythical creation didn't diminish his reputation a whit - his writings were spectacularly successful, read by Leibniz, esteemed by Newton and Boyle, voraciously consumed by countless readers. Gehennical Fire is the story of the man behind the myth, George Starkey. A work of meticulous scholarship, Gehennical Fire is both an absorbing intellectual biography and an intriguing exploration of alchemy and medical science in the seventeenth century.

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