Three Books of Occult Philosophy

SD 2
The following line is struck through in pencil
PP 3

AGRIPPA (HEINRICH CORNELIUS) von Nettesheim, 1486-1535.

1746. Three Books of Occult Philosophy . . . original Latin: "De Occulta Philosophia libri tres"
small folio a book format where the paper is folded once, creating large pages, [Cologne], (1533).

With portrait on title-page; woodcut initials; figures and tables. Book 3 is followed at leaf F3 verso the back side of the third leaf in the 'F' section of the book by letters of Agrippa and, at leaf F6 verso, by the ‘Criticism or Retraction concerning Magic’ original Latin: "Censura sive Retractatio De magia", from his ‘Declamation on the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences’ original Latin: "Declamatio de incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum" (Antwerp, 1531).

Book 1 was first printed by itself at Antwerp, by J. Grapheus, in 1531, quarto a book format where paper is folded twice, creating four leaves, and simultaneously by C. Wechelus at Paris. Both editions are exceedingly rare. The 3 books were first printed at Cologne by Johannes Soter in 1533. There are four or five issues of this date, distinguished by typographical differences. (Ferguson; see also Morley, no. 1750, ii, pp. 287 and 310, and Prost, no. 1751, ii, p. 513.)

Some copies lack the portrait. This is a thick-paper copy, the same as the Douce copy in the Bodleian The Bodleian Library at Oxford. Another issue in the Bodleian is on thin paper, but also has the portrait. The Douce copy, an exceptionally fine one, has a note on the flyleaf, “For a copy of this first edition Vogt says an Englishman at Frankfurt offered fifty golden crowns and more, but in vain.”

[William Osler]