John Dee's Diary, Catalogue of Manuscripts and Selected Letters

These editions (1842–1920) are fascinating for the immediacy of John Dee's accounts of his life as a Renaissance scholar.

John Dee (Author), James Orchard Halliwell (Edited by), James Crossley (Edited by), John Eglington Bailey (Edited by), M. R. James (Edited by)

9781108050562, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 18 April 2013

350 pages, 3 b/w illus.
22.9 x 15.2 x 2 cm, 0.51 kg

John Dee (1527–1608), popularly remembered as an alchemist and spiritualist, was an enthusiastic scholar specialising in mathematics and astronomy, and collected manuscripts, early printed books and scientific instruments. Despite meeting Elizabeth I in person, he never progressed in the Church, and died in poverty. The four selections from his writings reissued here show Dee painstakingly listing his books before a journey to Europe, and appealing to the Queen for help when, after a catastrophic burglary at his library and the destruction of his laboratory equipment, his pay also failed to arrive. J. O. Halliwell (1842) reproduces the full text of Dee's diaries with an index; James Crossley (1851) transcribes Dee's appeals to the Queen; Bailey's book (1880), of which only 20 copies were printed, contains a full commentary on the last five years of the diaries; and M. R. James (1920) researches the fate of Dee's books over the centuries.

Part I. The Private Diary of Dr John Dee, Edited by James Orchard Halliwell: Preface
Dr Dee's diary
Catalogus librorum bibliothecae externae Mortlacensis D. Joh. Dee, Anno 1583, 6 Sept.
Index
Part II. Autobiographical Tracts of Dr John Dee, Edited by James Crossley: Preface
The compendious rehearsall of John Dee
Supplication to Queen Mary
Articles for the recovery and preservation of the ancient monuments
A necessary advertizement
A letter containing a most brief discourse apologetical
Part III. Diary, for the Years 1595–1601, of Dr John Dee, Edited by John Eglington Bailey: Memoir of Dr Dee, 1527–94
The diary for 1595
The diary for 1596
The diary for 1597
The diary for 1598 (Jan.–March)
The diary for 1600 (June–Dec.)
The diary for 1601 (Jan.–April)
Letters by Dr Dee
Additional notes
Part IV. Lists of Manuscripts Formerly Owned by Dr John Dee, with Preface and Identifications by M. R. James: Preface
List A (Corpus Christi College, Oxford, MS 191)
List B (Brit. Mus. Add. 35213)
List C (Catalogus librorum, Trinity College, Cambridge, O. 4. 20)
Other manuscripts which certainly or probably belonged to Dee
List of manuscripts noticed
Additional note.

Subject Areas: History of ideas [JFCX]