The campaign for prohibition in Victorian England

Boehme and Weigel under Germany, Comenius under Czecho-Slowakia. Part II, I is works about alchemy arranged by authors, part II, 2 by subjects. Certain advantages of the new grouping are undeniable and in any case the index of names provides essential help. No opportunity seems to have been taken in facilitating the finding ofanonymous items as against previous bibliographies. For example there is the original reconstruction (1714) of the book Aesch mezareph (purifying fire) from the pieces scattered through the Kabbala denudata the attempt was repeated by Scholem in 1927 independently. It is entered under the catchword "Short" (item 248, 1-3, on p. 63-64, 'A Short enquiry concerning the Hermetic Art . . .'). Judiciously the author of the Kabbala denudata, Knorr of Rosenroth, is referred to in the index, although his name does not appear in the title of the English work of 1714. To trace the book in the catalogue is therefore left to the good luck or detective arts of the user. It is also in vain that he would look for it under preferable catchwords (such as Kabbala, Aesch mezareph or even the obviously spurious Philalethes named on the title) in the catalogue of the Wisconsin-Duveen collection by J. Neu (Nr. 3827 on p. 241, also under 'Short . . .'), whilst it seems to be missing in Ferguson's Bibliotheca altogether. Other examples are the catchwords "Concerning" (instead of "salt" or "aqua vitae", Nr. 342 and 343) and "Corollary" (instead of "hyle", Nr. 344). None of this, however, can diminish the standing of the work as a useful auxiliary to the classics of historicalchemical and alchemical bibliography. Walter Pagel