The Alchemy Reader: From Hermes Trismegistus to Isaac Newton by Stanton J. Linden
My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is a very dense read. The 20 page introduction covers the lengthy history of alchemy. The reader then consists of 27 excerpts (with good, useful introductions) of primary source materials spanning from the ancient to the seventeenth century. The book is definitely comprehensive, and it gave a good overview of alchemy, but it was a lot to take in. Admittedly my weakness lies in historical context of source materials, and though this text provides background info, it introduced so many ideas and authors/alchemists/scientists/poets that are new to me, that it’s definitely a lot for me to wrap my head around.
