LIBRARY NOTES
Virginia Stern
Letter to the Editor
Sunday, September 1, 1996
I found Margaret Byard's article in the last issue of Library Notes extremely interesting but would like to add some additional material on John Dee (1527-1608), several of whose books are to be found in the Winthrop Collection. Dee is a significant figure in the English Renaissance and is gradually being given proper recognition for his important library at Mortlake, just north of London. Three books have recently been published on his life and library, and a large conference on his career was held at the University of London in May, 1995.
As mentioned in Dr. Byard's article, Dee's library numbered well over 3,000 books and was frequently consulted by navigators, explorers, cartographers, and students in many fields. Queen Elizabeth herself found him extremely helpful. He is said to have urged her to form a British Empire. He was also a strong advocate of much-needed calendar reform, which eventually brought about the more accurate Gregorian Calendar, and was intensely interested in the work of Paracelsus, who was a proponent of chemical treatment of disease, a helpful improvement on Galen's theory of the four humors.
However, in Dee's perpetual search for answers to some of the world's as yet insoluble problems, he sometimes sought answers in esoteric fields and tried with his skryer, or "crystal gazer," Edward Kelly, to make contact with angels. Dee eventually seems to have realized that he was being duped and the two men parted company, but Dee's reputation had suffered in the process. His neighbors, becoming suspicious that Dee was practicing witchcraft, set fire to his library at Mortlake and destroyed a huge part of it. It is only in recent years that Dee's proper status has been restored. Historian Frances Yates said of his great book collection, "The whole Renaissance is in this library." In Dee's persistent search for some of the earth's answers, perhaps he should have considered an early precursor of the scientific revolution.
Dr. Virginia F. Stern
Library member
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