Reviewed by Walter W. Woodward | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 60.4

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to the WMQ online. About 311 words from this article are provided below; about 1315 words remain.

If you are a individual subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a subscriber to the William and Mary Quarterly, you can:: • subscribe here.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the William and Mary Quarterly (104.3-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the William and Mary Quarterly.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

Reviewed by Walter W. Woodward | Book Review | The William and Mary Quarterly, 60.4 | The History Cooperative

Reviews of Books

The Alchemy of Alchemy

Gehennical Fire: The Lives of George Starkey, an American Alchemist in the Scientific Revolution. By WILLIAM R. NEWMAN . (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Reprint Edition. Pp. xxii, 368. $27.50 paper.)

Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry. By WILLIAM R. NEWMAN and LAWRENCE M. PRINCIPE . (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 344. $40.00.)

Reviewed by Walter W. Woodward, Dickinson College

Few scholars have done more to transmute alchemy's contemporary reputation than William Newman and Lawrence Principe. In articles and monographs, they have clarified the subject while attempting to free it from a double historical curse. Alchemy's historical relevance was first marginalized, these authors argue, by Enlightenment philosophes who emphasized the novelty of their own ideas by ridiculing the alchemically based contributions of their predecessors. Two centuries later, Victorian occultists further misconstrued alchemy as a mystical quest for self-revelation having no connection to actual chemical practice. This double whammy of misrepresentation led some historians to dismiss alchemy as "pseudoscience" and others to overemphasize its occult and mystical dimensions.

To correct these errors and reposition alchemy as a historically significant contributor to modern chemistry, Newman and Principe have leaned heavily on a surprising, and surprisingly important, figure: the little-known New England expatriate George Starkey. Starkey (1628–1665) is a central figure in each of the books under review. In Gehennical Fire, he shares top billing with his own fictional creation Eirenaeus Philalethes ("Peaceful Lover of Truth"), a pseudonym Starkey adopted to disseminate anonymously his theories on early pharmaceutical medicine and alchemical transmutation. In Alchemy Tried in the Fire, Starkey shares the stage with Robert Boyle, the seventeenth-century's "father of chemistry," whose corpuscular mechanical philosophy marked a scientific watershed.

. . .

There are about 1315 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.