Alchemical Laboratory Notebooks and Correspondence

by George Starkey, William R. Newman (Editor), Lawrence M. Principe (Editor)

George Starkey—chymistry tutor to Robert Boyle, author of immensely popular alchemical treatises, and probably early America's most important scientist—reveals in these pages the daily laboratory experimentation of a seventeenth-century alchemist.

The editors present in this volume transcriptions of Starkey's texts, their translations, and valuable commentary for the modern reader. Dispelling the myth that alchemy was an irrational enterprise, this remarkable collection of laboratory notebooks and correspondence reveals the otherwise hidden methodologies of one of the seventeenth century's most influential alchemists.

378 pages, Hardcover

First published January 27, 2005

Reviews

[Sue Dounim · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is one of an extremely tiny group of books that actually reveal the exact laboratory processes employed by alchemists working in the "early modern European" tradition. Starkey was a young American alchemist of amazing industry. His notebooks show a tireless dedication to alchemical and other chemical experimentation. He graduated Harvard at age 18, and started a medical practice. He relocated to England just a few years later and continued his laboratory researches there. He died in the Great Plague in 1665, aged only 37. The alchemical medicinal preparations on which he worked so hard were, sadly, not effective.

This book seems quite rare and I had to request it from a local university through the the public library cooperative service.