The Familiar Astrologer. An Easy Guide To Fate, Destiny & Foreknowledge; As Well As to The Secret & Wonderful Properties Of Nature with a Variety of the Most Valuable and Interesting Matter, Not to be Found in Any Work of the Past or Present Time; Illustrated with numerous woodcuts and engravings on steel
London: William Bennett, 1841. Third Edition. Hardcover, large Ocatvo. viii + (3)-716pp. Half-leather over marbled paper boards. Contemporary leather spine with gilt titles labels skillfully repaired by being laid down on new backstrip, original marbled paper boards. Engraved frontispiece and 5 engraved plates. Various charts and b&w woodcut illustrations in-text. The engraved plates give an idea of the contents: the frontispiece is entitled "Millions of Supernatural Creatures Walk the Earth" and shows a variety of weird creatures, a magic book, etc; the second plate depicts "The Witch of Eve"; the third a a palmist's diagram of a hand; the fourth the raising of a spirit; the fifth an almost Harry Potterish depiction of ritual magick; and the sixth a symbolic representation of "the Alchemical Arcana." The work's pseudonymous author was Robert Cross Smith (1795-1832), the first of six nineteenth-century popularisers of astrology to use the pen-name Raphael. Smith was an alchemist and astrologer with a broad interest in the occult, who supported himself by publishing astrological books and journals. He was clearly influenced by Francis Barrett's "The Magus," and is said to have been a member of an occult circle run by Barrett to which Sir Edward Bulwer Lytton also belonged. "The Familiar Astrologer" was the last major work to be published by Smith. Despite its title the book is really a compendium of over 150 short essays on a wide variety of occult themes. About a third of the work is astrological with various charts (including that of Corder, the Red Barn murderer), with the rest on subjects as diverse as bibliomancy, banshees, celestial magic, the devil's banquet, elves in Ireland, electric eels (?), the evil eye, fairies, the fascination of dogs (and birds), the properties of herbs and stones, invocating the dead, obeah man, the possessed one, secrets in geomancy, necromancy etc. etc. This appears to be the third edition of the work, it was earlier published in 1828 and 1831. The binding has been professionally restored, with the original heavily chipped backstrip laid down over a new replacement. Fresh endpapers. A couple of closed marginal tears, a few pages a little dusty, and with a few scattered spots of foxing. Overall a VG + copy, with a pleasant "antique" look. Item #62414
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