The Dangerous Art of Alchemy

by Karen Maitland

First published 2015

Amazon

3.5(128)

Alchemy occupied an uncertain border between experiment, craft, medicine, philosophy and forbidden knowledge in medieval Europe. This short nonfiction work looks at the beliefs and working practices associated with alchemists, including their search for transformations of matter and the symbols, substances and secrecy that surrounded their laboratories.

Maitland also considers the political and personal pressures that made alchemy attractive to rulers, scholars and practitioners, and includes recipes based on medieval alchemical sources. The result is an accessible account of the historical ideas behind the experiments and imagery used in The Raven’s Head.