1794 1st Edition With Provenance
A KEY TO PHYSIC AND THE OCCULT SCIENCES
Opening to Mental View
The SYSTEM and ORDER of the Interior and Exterior HEAVENS; The ANALOGY betwixt ANGELS, and SPIRITS of MEN; and the Sympathy between CELESTIAL and TERRESTRIAL BODIES
A complete and appealing first edition of Ebenezer Sibly's extraordinary synthesis of medicine, astrology, alchemy, animal magnetism and natural philosophy, published in London in 1794. Complete with the engraved frontispiece and 29 further full-page engraved plates — 30 plates in total — together with the 76-page Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal.
One of the more remarkable illustrated works of late eighteenth-century English esotericism, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences occupies the meeting-point between Enlightenment science and the older Hermetic world. Sibly combines contemporary medicine and natural philosophy with astrology, alchemical theory, celestial influence, animal magnetism and the traditional doctrine of correspondences between the human body and the cosmos. Its striking engraved suite incorporates imagery drawn from the European Hermetic and alchemical tradition.
Of particular interest is the engraved bookseller and binder's trade ticket of Joseph Gleave, Deansgate, Manchester, pasted to the front pastedown and dating from approximately the 1820s. Gleave was a prominent Manchester bookseller, stationer, binder and publisher; notably, he later published an edition of Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician in Manchester in 1826, giving the provenance an unusually apt association with Sibly's own Culpeper-related text.
By Ebenezer Sibly
Provenance: With the engraved trade ticket of Joseph Gleave, Bookseller, Stationer & Binder, Deansgate, Manchester, c.1820s, to the front pastedown. An attractive piece of early nineteenth-century Manchester book-trade provenance. The ticket records the book's association with Gleave's establishment but does not, by itself, establish that the present binding was executed there.
Format: Hardcover, quarto (4to 9 1⁄2 × 12 in 241 × 305 mm )
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
Language: English
Published By: Printed for the Author, and sold by Champante and Whitrow, London
Condition Report:
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Very Good - A complete first-edition copy, including the Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal, with engraved frontispiece and 29 further full-page engraved plates, making the full complement of 30 engraved plates, together with diagrams and figures within the text.
Bound in contemporary reverse calf boards, sympathetically rebacked at a later date, with the earlier red morocco spine label retained. Boards rubbed, marked and worn in places, with expected wear to edges and corners. Evidence of restoration at the pastedowns/inner hinges associated with the rebacking. The engraved Joseph Gleave bookseller and binder's ticket remains present on the front pastedown.
Internally, the text and plate suite are complete. General age-toning with scattered foxing and spotting, occasional marginal staining and handling marks consistent with a late eighteenth-century medical and occult quarto. The engraved plates retain strong impressions and generous margins overall.
An attractive and substantially well-preserved collector's copy, its chief condition qualification being the conspicuous but sympathetic rebacking and wear to the original boards. Bibliographically complete, with all 30 full-page engravings and the complete 76-page Culpeper appendix present.
Collation: [4], 395, [1], 76 pp.; engraved frontispiece and 29 further engraved plates; diagrams and figures in the text.
Please see Photos as part of condition report.
References:
Wellcome Collection, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences, dated [1794]
Allen G. Debus, “Scientific Truth and Occult Tradition: The Medical World of Ebenezer Sibly (1751–1799)”
Wellcome Collection, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and English Physician, Manchester: J. Gleave, 1826
Grosvenor Prints, Catalogue 132, Joseph Gleave bookseller's trade ticket, Deansgate, Manchester, c.1820s
Author Bio: Ebenezer Sibly (1751–1799) was an English physician, astrologer and writer on medicine and the occult. Educated in medicine and deeply engaged with astrology, alchemy, natural philosophy and animal magnetism, he became one of the most distinctive British representatives of the late eighteenth-century attempt to reconcile new scientific ideas with older Hermetic and esoteric traditions.
His writings range across astrology, medicine, natural history, mesmerism and occult philosophy, and are notable for the ease with which contemporary scientific theories are placed alongside Paracelsian, alchemical and astrological systems.
Illustrated By: Daniel Dodd and others; engraved by J. Pass, Prattent and other hands
Illustrator Bio: The extensive engraved suite was produced by several artists and engravers rather than by Sibly alone. Surviving plates from the work identify Daniel Dodd as designer and J. Pass as engraver, while other plates are signed by engravers including Prattent.
The imagery ranges from anatomical and embryological subjects to astrological, cosmological, magnetic and explicitly Hermetic compositions. Some designs draw upon much earlier European alchemical imagery, placing the work visually as well as intellectually within the continuing Hermetic tradition of the eighteenth century.
Synopsis: Published in 1794, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences is one of Ebenezer Sibly's most ambitious attempts to construct a complete system linking the human body, the natural world and the heavens.
The work brings together medicine, physiology, astrology, alchemy, natural magic, mineral and animal magnetism, celestial influence and theories of generation and disease. Rather than treating these disciplines as separate subjects, Sibly presents them as parts of a single natural order in which the macrocosm of the universe corresponds with the microcosm of the human body.
Particularly notable is Sibly's treatment of animal magnetism and mesmerism, then among the most controversial subjects in European medicine and natural philosophy. He interprets magnetic influence through the wider ideas of sympathy, antipathy and invisible forces acting between bodies, integrating the new fascination with mesmerism into an older Hermetic understanding of nature.
The engraved illustrations are an important part of the book's appeal. They include anatomical and embryological subjects, cosmological diagrams and elaborate occult compositions, among them imagery indebted to the great European tradition of illustrated alchemical and Hermetic books.
The volume concludes with the separately paginated 76-page Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal, reinforcing Sibly's attempt to unite traditional herbal medicine with his larger astrological and occult system of physic.
A substantial and highly visual Georgian esoteric work, important to the histories of astrology, alchemy, medicine, mesmerism and the interaction between Enlightenment science and the surviving Hermetic tradition.
SKU: BTETM0002199
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
1794 1st Edition With Provenance
A KEY TO PHYSIC AND THE OCCULT SCIENCES
Opening to Mental View
The SYSTEM and ORDER of the Interior and Exterior HEAVENS; The ANALOGY betwixt ANGELS, and SPIRITS of MEN; and the Sympathy between CELESTIAL and TERRESTRIAL BODIES
A complete and appealing first edition of Ebenezer Sibly's extraordinary synthesis of medicine, astrology, alchemy, animal magnetism and natural philosophy, published in London in 1794. Complete with the engraved frontispiece and 29 further full-page engraved plates — 30 plates in total — together with the 76-page Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal.
One of the more remarkable illustrated works of late eighteenth-century English esotericism, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences occupies the meeting-point between Enlightenment science and the older Hermetic world. Sibly combines contemporary medicine and natural philosophy with astrology, alchemical theory, celestial influence, animal magnetism and the traditional doctrine of correspondences between the human body and the cosmos. Its striking engraved suite incorporates imagery drawn from the European Hermetic and alchemical tradition.
Of particular interest is the engraved bookseller and binder's trade ticket of Joseph Gleave, Deansgate, Manchester, pasted to the front pastedown and dating from approximately the 1820s. Gleave was a prominent Manchester bookseller, stationer, binder and publisher; notably, he later published an edition of Culpeper's Complete Herbal and English Physician in Manchester in 1826, giving the provenance an unusually apt association with Sibly's own Culpeper-related text.
By Ebenezer Sibly
Provenance: With the engraved trade ticket of Joseph Gleave, Bookseller, Stationer & Binder, Deansgate, Manchester, c.1820s, to the front pastedown. An attractive piece of early nineteenth-century Manchester book-trade provenance. The ticket records the book's association with Gleave's establishment but does not, by itself, establish that the present binding was executed there.
Format: Hardcover, quarto (4to 9 1⁄2 × 12 in 241 × 305 mm )
Note: Binding/size selection follows standard bibliographic conventions and is approximate; exact measurements may vary.
Language: English
Published By: Printed for the Author, and sold by Champante and Whitrow, London
Condition Report:
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket
Very Good - A complete first-edition copy, including the Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal, with engraved frontispiece and 29 further full-page engraved plates, making the full complement of 30 engraved plates, together with diagrams and figures within the text.
Bound in contemporary reverse calf boards, sympathetically rebacked at a later date, with the earlier red morocco spine label retained. Boards rubbed, marked and worn in places, with expected wear to edges and corners. Evidence of restoration at the pastedowns/inner hinges associated with the rebacking. The engraved Joseph Gleave bookseller and binder's ticket remains present on the front pastedown.
Internally, the text and plate suite are complete. General age-toning with scattered foxing and spotting, occasional marginal staining and handling marks consistent with a late eighteenth-century medical and occult quarto. The engraved plates retain strong impressions and generous margins overall.
An attractive and substantially well-preserved collector's copy, its chief condition qualification being the conspicuous but sympathetic rebacking and wear to the original boards. Bibliographically complete, with all 30 full-page engravings and the complete 76-page Culpeper appendix present.
Collation: [4], 395, [1], 76 pp.; engraved frontispiece and 29 further engraved plates; diagrams and figures in the text.
Please see Photos as part of condition report.
References:
Wellcome Collection, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences, dated [1794]
Allen G. Debus, “Scientific Truth and Occult Tradition: The Medical World of Ebenezer Sibly (1751–1799)”
Wellcome Collection, Culpeper's Complete Herbal, and English Physician, Manchester: J. Gleave, 1826
Grosvenor Prints, Catalogue 132, Joseph Gleave bookseller's trade ticket, Deansgate, Manchester, c.1820s
Author Bio: Ebenezer Sibly (1751–1799) was an English physician, astrologer and writer on medicine and the occult. Educated in medicine and deeply engaged with astrology, alchemy, natural philosophy and animal magnetism, he became one of the most distinctive British representatives of the late eighteenth-century attempt to reconcile new scientific ideas with older Hermetic and esoteric traditions.
His writings range across astrology, medicine, natural history, mesmerism and occult philosophy, and are notable for the ease with which contemporary scientific theories are placed alongside Paracelsian, alchemical and astrological systems.
Illustrated By: Daniel Dodd and others; engraved by J. Pass, Prattent and other hands
Illustrator Bio: The extensive engraved suite was produced by several artists and engravers rather than by Sibly alone. Surviving plates from the work identify Daniel Dodd as designer and J. Pass as engraver, while other plates are signed by engravers including Prattent.
The imagery ranges from anatomical and embryological subjects to astrological, cosmological, magnetic and explicitly Hermetic compositions. Some designs draw upon much earlier European alchemical imagery, placing the work visually as well as intellectually within the continuing Hermetic tradition of the eighteenth century.
Synopsis: Published in 1794, A Key to Physic, and the Occult Sciences is one of Ebenezer Sibly's most ambitious attempts to construct a complete system linking the human body, the natural world and the heavens.
The work brings together medicine, physiology, astrology, alchemy, natural magic, mineral and animal magnetism, celestial influence and theories of generation and disease. Rather than treating these disciplines as separate subjects, Sibly presents them as parts of a single natural order in which the macrocosm of the universe corresponds with the microcosm of the human body.
Particularly notable is Sibly's treatment of animal magnetism and mesmerism, then among the most controversial subjects in European medicine and natural philosophy. He interprets magnetic influence through the wider ideas of sympathy, antipathy and invisible forces acting between bodies, integrating the new fascination with mesmerism into an older Hermetic understanding of nature.
The engraved illustrations are an important part of the book's appeal. They include anatomical and embryological subjects, cosmological diagrams and elaborate occult compositions, among them imagery indebted to the great European tradition of illustrated alchemical and Hermetic books.
The volume concludes with the separately paginated 76-page Appendix to Culpeper's British Herbal, reinforcing Sibly's attempt to unite traditional herbal medicine with his larger astrological and occult system of physic.
A substantial and highly visual Georgian esoteric work, important to the histories of astrology, alchemy, medicine, mesmerism and the interaction between Enlightenment science and the surviving Hermetic tradition.
SKU: BTETM0002199
Shipping Info: Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 2Kg
Tracked Shipping, Insurance Coverage as per Customer Request
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