Ashmole (Elias), 1617–1692.

The British Alchemical Theater original: Theatrum Chemicum Britannicum. Containing several poetic pieces by our famous English philosophers, who have written the Hermetic Refers to Hermes Trismegistus, the legendary founder of alchemy. mysteries in their own ancient language. Faithfully collected into one volume, with annotations included. Thick small quarto original: "4to," a book size where each sheet of paper is folded twice to form four leaves. Title printed in red and black with a very fine engraved title vignette. With a folding plate by John Goddard, seven full-page and several smaller engravings by Robert Vaughan. Old calf leather, neatly rebacked, with a gilded title-piece.

of Ashmole

Ashmole, "perhaps the most remarkable antiquarian adventurer of the century" (Gunther) and founder of the Ashmolean Museum at Oxford, provided in The British Alchemical Theater the most valuable collection of old English alchemical writings in verse—29 in total. The first and longest (106 pages) of them is the original English version of The Ordinal of Alchemy by Thomas Norton of Bristol (active around 1477), a true storehouse of medieval science. Two other contributions of primary importance are The Compound of Alchemy by George Ripley (c. 1415–1490) and The Canon's Yeoman's Tale by Geoffrey Chaucer.

Ashmole's collection was one of the favorite books of Sir Isaac Newton. An entry in one of his notebooks shows that he bought it in 1669 for 1 pound and 8 shillings. Manuscript transcripts of parts of this book, in Newton's handwriting, still exist, and his richly annotated copy of the printed book is also preserved. The fine engravings by Vaughan are of unusual interest.

One of the very rarest books in English alchemy. Ours is a fine, well-preserved copy, but without the unnumbered plate between pages 436–437, which is found