Biographical Preface.

able to affirm that the importance of this alchemist's history concentrates entirely in his possession of the transmuting powders The legendary "projection powders" or the Philosopher's Stone, believed to facilitate the alchemical transformation of base metals into gold, and in the manner by which he is said to have acquired them. The other episodes of his life may be treated with comparative brevity.

Oxford’s Athens original Latin: Athenæ Oxoniensis*, ed. 1813, pp. 639-643.

Edward Kelly appears to have been born at Worcester, the event occurring, according to Anthony à Wood A renowned 17th-century English antiquarian and historian (1632–1695) who documented the lives of Oxford graduates,* about four o'clock in the afternoon on the first day of August, 1555. This was in the third year of Queen Mary's reign Mary I, the Tudor queen who reigned from 1553 to 1558. He was educated in his native city until the age of seventeen, when he is supposed to have repaired to Oxford. The registers of that University contain no record of any Edward Kelly having entered at the period in question, and it is assumed that his real name was Talbot. Three persons bearing this designation were entered at Gloucester HallA former academic hall of the University of Oxford, which later became Worcester College about this time. Possibly the University records have not been adequately searched, and