School of the Night

Casebook of Doctor Simon Foreman #5

by Judith Cook

First edition. A near fine copy in a near fine dust jacket. Dust soiling to the book's upper page block. The dust jacket has a mild bump at the head of its spine.

256 pages, Hardcover

First published June 1, 2000

About the author

Judith Cook was a lecturer in theatre at the University of Exeter. She wrote several mysteries based on the casebooks of Dr Simon Forman, an Elizabethan doctor and astrologer.

Reviews

[Alan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this to be very engrossing. Having an interest in Dr Simon Forman, I’d read his Autobiogtlraohy and Diary as edited by Halliwell by James Orchard Halliwell and I was impressed as to how closely events and people in Cook’s fictional account mapped to Simon’s real life.
I am interested in Simon’s life in Salisbury before he moved to London in 1589 when he was 37. Very little is known of Simon’s life during this period beyond what he wrote in his own life writings. It interests me that he never mentions Mary Countess if Pembroke despite they sharing mutual interests in alchemy. Indeed, John Aubrey commented that ”There it might be seen [in the library of Elias Ashmole] whether he [Forman] was not a favourite of Mary, Countess of Pembroke”. However, Cook has chosen to have Forman and the Countess of Pembroke to have met for the first time at sir Walter Ralegh’s home at Sherborne Castle - after Forman had moved to London.
This book will bear reading again, and next time with a map of London to hand to trace Forman’s movements.