The Hieroglyphic Monad.
London: John M. Watkins, 1947. First Edition Thus. Hardcover. Octavo. 76pp. Original blue cloth with gilt titling to spine. Frontis portrait, 3 plates, diagrams. Cited as one of Dee's most important studies of "magical mathematics," he supposedly wrote the work in 13 days in January 1564. It was published that same year, in Latin, as the Monas Hieroglyphica, although the title of the second (German) edition - when translated - probably gives more of a sense of its contents "The Monad, Hieroglyphically, Mathematically, Magically, Cabbalistically and Anagogically Explained." This is the first separate English language edition. The editor, J. W. Hamilton-Jones, was a well-known Freemason, Theosophist, and member of the Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia (S.R.I.A.), who published a number of important translations of alchemical and hermetic texts. Hamilton-Jones was part of that small group, including Sylvia M. Ivens, and Leonard Frank Pembroke, who carried forth the serious study of alchemy from the 1930s onwards, taking up the work of W. A. Ayton and Percy Bullock (two members of the original Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn known for their great interest in alchemy), and the enigmatic Julius Kohn (1850 - 1925?) to whose books and manuscripts they had access. Cloth lightly rubbed & darkened, corners and spine ends lightly bumped and chafed, page edges a bit darkened and foxed, endpapers unevenly browned. Overall a tight unmarked VG+ copy in Good dust jacket. (Dust jacket rubbed chafed and chipped at all extremities, darkened with some foxing, light chafing to edges, a few small chips & tears to edges and spine, reinforced from the back with tape, not clipped). Item #58234
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