McLEAN, Adam.

A Commentary on the Mutus Liber [ Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks series ].

Edinburgh Scotland: Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 1982. Limited Edition. Hardcover. Octavo. 62 pp. Hand-bound in series brown faux leather, gilt titling to spine, frontis and b&w illustrations. Dark brown endpapers. Edition limited to 250 hand-numbered copies, signed by Adam McLean, this being copy 230. Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks series No. 11. The "Mutus Liber" ("Silent Book") is a well known alchemical text that was first published in 1677 at La Rochelle, in France, although the edition of Joanne Jacobus Manget (Geneva, 1702) included two plates not in the first edition. This edition reproduces the full fifteen plates of the Manget edition, which illustrate the alchemist's quest for the Philosopher's Stone, from manufacture to attainment. The plates are accompanied by an extensive commentary by Adam McLean, who explores the nature and meaning of the diagrams, and the processes, both spiritual and practical, they depict. This is typical of the later issues of the first edition of this work: it has plain dark brown endpapers, is printed on a bright white stock, has a high number in the sequence of limitation, and the binding is a red-brown patterned faux leather with the title lettered down the spine reading simply "Mutus Liber". As always with this edition some ripples in the endpapers (like this from new). A lovely near Fine copy. Item #74069

Price: $200.00