The alchemists

The figure of the alchemist stands as the true bridge between magic and modern science. Now, in this fascinating book, author F. Sherwood Taylor, former Director of the Science Museum in South Kensington and the author of many chemistry textbooks, provides what is probably the finest, authoritative popular account of the alchemists as the really were.

The book includes chapters on the ideas of the alchemists and the origin of their practice, the earliest alchemical signs and symbols, Chinese and Islamic alchemy, medieval and English alchemists, alchemical symbolism, and the story of a true transformation, not one from lead to gold, but of the replacement of superstition by science. This book should be of interest to anyone concerned with the history of ideas and Man's attitude toward matter.