List of Figures
List of Abbreviations
ConventionsAcknowledgments
Introduction: What Is Mercury?
Part I: The Medieval Origins of English Alchemy
1. Philosophers and Kings
2. Medicine and Transmutation
3. Opinion and Experience
Part II: The Golden Age of English Alchemy
4. Dissolution and Reformation
5. Nature and Magic
6. Time and Money
Part III: The Legacy of Medieval Alchemy in Early Modern
England
7. Recovery and Revision
8. Home and Abroad
9. Antiquity and Experiment
Bibliography
Index
Jennifer M. Rampling is associate professor of history at Princeton University.
"The Experimental Fire reads like an insider's history of
English alchemy, exposing its inner workings and demystifying its
encrypted canon with adeptness and hard-earned authority. Jennifer
M. Rampling meets the frustrating material of alchemical history
with all the scholarly agility and suspicion requisite to the task.
This book steers straight into the hazards of alchemical
literature, with its bricolage texts full of borrowed works uncited
or cited badly, recorded in manuscripts annotated by many anonymous
hands. Rampling is the first to handle these hazardous materials so
comprehensively and confidently. She reports on her many archival
discoveries and assembles them into a coherent narrative of
influence and innovation in English alchemy over four centuries.
Her forerunner in this strange country was Dorothea Waley Singer,
whose preliminary census of alchemical manuscripts in British
libraries laid the groundwork for English alchemical history and
has awaited a proper follow-up since 1931. With Experimental Fire,
Rampling delivers one."
*Los Angeles Review of Books*
"This is a densely argued academic work which builds its case for a
particular view of English alchemy example by example, with a crop
of detailed footnotes sprouting from the base of every page. . . .
[As] an introduction to the evolution of English alchemy, it is
impeccable."
*Fortean Times*
"An engaging piece of scholarly work that should satisfy the expert
and the layman alike. It makes a subject like alchemy, that appears
highly abstruse, palatable to readers who may balk at the
complexity and remoteness of alchemical language. More than
anything, perhaps, it humanises the alchemist, showing him or her
to be a historical personage caught up in the circumstances of the
era and seeking to survive the upheavals and challenges of
historical reality. As such, Rampling's book is not just an
essential read for the new historiography of alchemy, but it is
bound to make an important contribution to the history of science,
social history, history of scholarship, and the history of the
book."
*Early Science and Medicine*
"Jennifer M. Rampling’s first book takes on the incredible feat of
identifying and tracing a specific strand of sericonian alchemical
knowledge across a 400-year period. . . . In this book, Rampling
expertly unpacks the function of English alchemical authority and
patronage within a pan-European network of practitioners. She has
pieced together a compelling narrative of national identity and
alchemical change over time. . . . this will be a necessary
addition to the bookshelves of any scholar of alchemy, patronage,
the book, and English intellectual history."
*Isis*
"Rich and vast. . . . The Experimental Fire challenges us to
grapple with a more expansive idea of history, one that includes
the lineage, development, and comprehension of false knowledge.
Just because something isn’t true doesn’t mean it’s not real, that
it can’t be studied, argued over, or taught. Indeed, alchemy,
Rampling argues, is nothing but the invention and reinvention of
one type of knowledge. And what is literature, or history, or
science, if not a variation of the same?"
*Chicago Review of Books*
"A new and fascinating angle on how alchemy began to transform
science into a modern enterprise. . . . Beautifully and clearly
written."
*Forbidden Histories*
“In The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300-1700,
Jennifer M. Rampling presents the largely uncharted history of
English alchemy from its medieval roots until the end of the
seventeenth century with an astounding eye for detail.”
*Annals of Science*
"Rampling's extensive survey of English alchemy is a masterclass in
history of science research and serves as a model for anyone who
wishes to undertake such a project. Although it meets the highest
standards of academic research, she writes with a light touch and
an accomplished literary style making a complex and technical topic
accessible to the not necessarily specialist reader. . . . Anybody
with some basic knowledge of the history of alchemy, and an
interest in developing that knowledge, could and should read her
book. For those with a serious interest in the topic The
Experimental Fire is an obligatory read and must already be
considered a standard work in the genre."
*Renaissance Mathematicus*
"Rampling's book is a rich source for a reader interested in
English alchemy in the late medieval and early modern period.
Rampling deserves praise for bringing to light a large amount of as
yet unpublished manuscripts, which are analysed in detail as well
as placed in their historical, social, and religious contexts. The
picture that emerges from this book is one of a complex network, in
which practitioners, patrons, physicians, collectors, and forgers
interacted and influenced each other and the art of alchemy."
*Journal of Early Modern Studies*
"Captivating. . . . Whether your interest is in early modern
European history, the history of science, or old occult practices,
this is a book well worth giving consideration as your next reading
selection."
*Well-read Naturalist*
"As Rampling analyzes how the English alchemical practitioners
filled gaps in information found in their books and resolved
discrepancies between texts and experience, she identifies networks
of readers and traces a subtle evolution in how works on alchemy
were read. She notes parallels in these reading practices with
developments in other forms of knowledge, such as Reformation-era
theology. This book is well organized, offers readable and engaging
prose, and has been carefully edited. The bibliography and index
are comprehensive. . . . Highly recommended."
*Choice*
"This book has so many novel elements that it is difficult to know
where to begin. Rampling presents one amazing archival discovery
after another like a magician pulling rabbits from a hat. Forging
vivid and compelling narratives with her materials, while remaining
keenly aware of the living history behind the documents, she has
been able to sketch the outlines of what has previously been
entirely unknown to the history of alchemy. This is a fully
achieved piece of research that is destined to become the key work
in the field."
*Stephen Clucas, Birkbeck, University of London*
"Rampling offers a masterful survey of alchemy in England, from its
status as the largest scientific genre circa 1400 through the
patronage of Henry VIII and Elizabeth I. Building on the legacy of
George Ripley, English alchemists developed expert skills in
textual interpretation and experimental practice—focused on both
medicine and transmutation—in order to portray themselves as
philosophers rather than artisans. Rampling writes with admirable
lucidity about cryptic manuscripts, colorful figures, and
complicated archival evidence."
*Ann M. Blair, Carl H. Pforzheimer University Professor, Harvard
University*
"This is an extraordinary and important piece of scholarship.
Rampling carries the reader from the first origins of alchemy in
Medieval England, through the Reformation, and down to the end of
the seventeenth century—a remarkable temporal sweep. There has not
previously been a study of the alchemical tradition that so
thoroughly follows a coherently framed national context for so long
a period. Rampling presents the material in a remarkably clear and
concise fashion that does justice to its complexity yet still
guides the reader."
*Lawrence M. Principe, author of The Transmutations of Chymistry:
Wilhelm Homberg and the Académie Royale des Sciences*
"In The Experimental Fire: Inventing English Alchemy, 1300–1700,
Jennifer Rampling traces this sericonian branch of alchemy through
its highs and lows from the medieval to the early modern periods,
emphasizing that alchemy was not a homogenous or static discipline
but rather one that underwent a series of subtle yet important
changes."
*Journal of British Studies*
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