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A DICTIONARY OF ALCHEMICAL IMAGERY. By Lyndy Abraham. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998. Pp. xxii + 249; 50 illustrations. $80.
For the student of Renaissance studies who already knows the general outlines of both physical and metaphysical alchemy, this work is an extremely useful tool, offering very full entries with coherently ordered details. While it lacks any sort of history of alchemy, there are many of these available elsewhere, and the considerations of space, as well as the genre of the dictionary, are probably prohibitive. Still, some general outline under an entry such as "alchemical process" or the "great work" would have broadened the readership of the work. In fairness, however, this is the sort of text to which a knowledgeable reader can look for almost encyclopedic information. Before turning to an example of how Abraham's text can be used, however, there is one more limitation that needs noting.
In her introduction, Abraham states that she has "chosen primarily to cite...