What distinguished the true alchemist from the fraud? This question animated the lives and labors of the common men—and occasionally women—who made a living

In 1573, the alchemist Anna Zieglerin gave her patron, the Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel, the recipe for an extraordinary substance she called the lion's b

In The Business of Alchemy, Pamela Smith explores the relationships among alchemy, the court, and commerce in order to illuminate the cultural history of the Ho

William Newman and Lawrence Principe reveal the hitherto hidden laboratory experiments of a famous alchemist and argue that many of the principles and practices

George Starkey—chymistry tutor to Robert Boyle, author of immensely popular alchemical treatises, and probably early America's most important scientist—reve