Praeface to the Elements of Geometrie of Euclid of Megara (1570) (New York, 1975); and his Monas hieroglyphica in C.H. Josten, ‘A Translation of John Dee's Monas hieroglyphica with an Introduction and Annotations’, Ambix 12 (1964), pp. 84–221. The text of Dee's conversations with angels from December 1581 to May 1583 in BL MS Sloane 3188, edited by Christopher Whitby as his 1981 Birmingham Ph.D. thesis, is available for free download from the British Library database EThOS (Electronic Theses Online Service). Meric Casaubon published the continuation of the conversations from 1583 as A true & faithful relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee … and some spirits (London, 1659). This, and Dee's published writings, including General and rare memorials pertayning to the perfect arte of navigation (London, 1577) and Letter Apologetical (1599, 1604), are now widely available through the Early English Books Online database, subscribed to by many libraries.
Used with care, Joseph Peterson's edition of John Dee's Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic: From the Collected Works known as Mysteriorum libri quinque (Boston, MA, 2003) has important material on the conversations. Even more caution is required with Donald C. Laycock, The Complete Enochian Dictionary (Boston, MA, York Beach, ME, 2001). Dee's crucial text in BL MS Add. 59681, ‘Brytanici Imperii Limites’, has been edited by Ken MacMillan with Jennifer Abeles, as John Dee: The Limits of the British Empire (Westport, CT, and London, 2004). There is valuable material by and about Dee at The Alchemy Website ( http://www.alchemywebsite.com/ ) and the John Dee Publication Project ( www.john-dee.org ).
Major Studies on Dee
The fundamental study of Dee's collection of books and manuscripts is Julian Roberts and Andrew G. Watson, John Dee's Library Catalogue (London, 1990). My book also owes much to NicholasClulee's deep analysis of Dee's response to contemporary natural philosophy, John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion (London, New York, 1988), supplemented by Clulee ‘The Monas hieroglyphica and the Alchemical Thread of John Dee's Career’, Ambix , 52, 3 (November 2005), pp. 197–215. William H. Sherman's elegant study of Dee as an ‘intelligencer’ writing advice for the Court, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA, 1995), places less emphasis on Dee's occult philosophy. Deborah Harkness has published the most detailed study of John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (Cambridge, 1999), though following Clulee she distinguishes Dee's occult philosophy from that of ordinary ‘cunning men’ more than I have done.
There has not been space to discuss all aspects of Dee's thought in this book. We lack a comprehensive study of his ‘Mathematical Preface’, but there is still much of value on his historical research, particularly about his study of Arthurian sources, in Peter J. French, John Dee (London, 1972). However, influenced by Frances Yates, French discussed Dee's occult philosophy mainly to demonstrate his indebtedness to Hermeticism. With that caution Yates's own study, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1979), is a useful introduction to other aspects of Dee's milieu. Much of Yates's interpretation of Dee has been corrected, and the field of Dee studies greatly expanded, in Stephen Clucas, ed., John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (Dordrecht, 2006), soon to be further augmented by the collection of essays in ‘John Dee and the Sciences: Early Modern Networks of Knowledge’, a special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A , ed. Jennifer M. Rampling (forthcoming, 2012).
The Broader Background
On the broader background to Dee's early studies, see Mordechai Feingold, The Mathematicians’ Apprenticeship: Science, Universities and Society in
Used with care, Joseph Peterson's edition of John Dee's Five Books of Mystery: Original Sourcebook of Enochian Magic: From the Collected Works known as Mysteriorum libri quinque (Boston, MA, 2003) has important material on the conversations. Even more caution is required with Donald C. Laycock, The Complete Enochian Dictionary (Boston, MA, York Beach, ME, 2001). Dee's crucial text in BL MS Add. 59681, ‘Brytanici Imperii Limites’, has been edited by Ken MacMillan with Jennifer Abeles, as John Dee: The Limits of the British Empire (Westport, CT, and London, 2004). There is valuable material by and about Dee at The Alchemy Website ( http://www.alchemywebsite.com/ ) and the John Dee Publication Project ( www.john-dee.org ).
Major Studies on Dee
The fundamental study of Dee's collection of books and manuscripts is Julian Roberts and Andrew G. Watson, John Dee's Library Catalogue (London, 1990). My book also owes much to NicholasClulee's deep analysis of Dee's response to contemporary natural philosophy, John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Science and Religion (London, New York, 1988), supplemented by Clulee ‘The Monas hieroglyphica and the Alchemical Thread of John Dee's Career’, Ambix , 52, 3 (November 2005), pp. 197–215. William H. Sherman's elegant study of Dee as an ‘intelligencer’ writing advice for the Court, John Dee: The Politics of Reading and Writing in the English Renaissance (Amherst, MA, 1995), places less emphasis on Dee's occult philosophy. Deborah Harkness has published the most detailed study of John Dee's Conversations with Angels: Cabala, Alchemy, and the End of Nature (Cambridge, 1999), though following Clulee she distinguishes Dee's occult philosophy from that of ordinary ‘cunning men’ more than I have done.
There has not been space to discuss all aspects of Dee's thought in this book. We lack a comprehensive study of his ‘Mathematical Preface’, but there is still much of value on his historical research, particularly about his study of Arthurian sources, in Peter J. French, John Dee (London, 1972). However, influenced by Frances Yates, French discussed Dee's occult philosophy mainly to demonstrate his indebtedness to Hermeticism. With that caution Yates's own study, The Occult Philosophy in the Elizabethan Age (London, 1979), is a useful introduction to other aspects of Dee's milieu. Much of Yates's interpretation of Dee has been corrected, and the field of Dee studies greatly expanded, in Stephen Clucas, ed., John Dee: Interdisciplinary Studies in English Renaissance Thought (Dordrecht, 2006), soon to be further augmented by the collection of essays in ‘John Dee and the Sciences: Early Modern Networks of Knowledge’, a special issue of Studies in History and Philosophy of Science, Part A , ed. Jennifer M. Rampling (forthcoming, 2012).
The Broader Background
On the broader background to Dee's early studies, see Mordechai Feingold, The Mathematicians’ Apprenticeship: Science, Universities and Society in
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