Previously when I  I thought of alchemy it conjured up visions of gothic jewellery, you know the sort, pewter, swirly dragon's tails and skulls. I remember loving Alchemy England rings so much at one point during my teen years (will not be inserting pictorial evidence here!). So before picking up this book I only had a vague idea of what alchemy was about (and that it might have something to do with dragons). Therefore I was excited to get to grips with 'The World's Most Famous Alchemical Manuscript'.

So first of all I have given the book  5/5 globes. I couldn't not. It is an excellent resource and I think anyone would enjoy exploring the images from Splendor, however there is a disclaimer, the info surrounding these it is for a specific audience and not something I'd necessarily recommend for everyone. I would imagine that a general reader who isn't researching around the subject probably wouldn't enjoy reading lengthy explanations of the various editions of the manuscript. 

At £22 on Amazon, it's a very affordable resource for researchers who can't get to the British Library where the original text is held. Prinke's essay provides a history of the text. As many books from the era do, it has a complicated history of various portions being borrowed from different authors and attributed to various figures. For a researcher having this kind of legwork done for you is golden! This edition appears to have everything a budding Splendor Solis scholar could be after in one place, the structure of the book is as follows:

- An Introduction to Splendor Solis by Stephen Skinner
- History and Authorship of Splendor Solis by Rafal T. Prinke
- Inventing the Alchemical Adept: Splendor Solis and the Paracelsian Movement by Georgiana Heesan
- Commentry on the text and plates of Splendor Solis by Stephen Skinner
- Translation of The Harley Manuscript by Joscelyn Godwin
- Glossary of Alchemical Philosophers and Works Referred to in Splendor Solis by Georgiana Hedesen.

The text contains many weird and wonderful plates with an explanation of each, I showed my (then almost) two year old one of the images and it went down very well, lots of pointing and positive noises, I think it was 100% the critters.

I would not recommend this as a bit of light reading (and I'm sure this was not the books intended purpose!) being very detail heavy on the authorship and I think assumes some kind of pre existing knowledge regarding the history of alchemy or other alchemical works.  So perhaps one to graduate onto once you've had a bit of an introduction. However this is an incredibly enlightening book for anyone who is interested in the Splendor Solis manuscript and are in need of an excellent analysis of the text and history. I know from my own research with early modern texts that it can be challenging to track all of the different versions of texts and who wrote what or added what when. This book has all of that information and more, super resource for those researching in this area.

This is a beautiful edition of a fascinating and mysterious manuscript. I have always been obsessed with manuscripts, but especially with those that still have secrets to unlock. And what is more secret and mysterious than alchemy? This is a very in-depth and modern translation of a 16th century manuscript and I appreciated the efforts of the authors to emphasize the scientific aspects of alchemy over the, perhaps more popular, spiritual aspects. For anyone interested in exploring alchemy and illuminated manuscripts this is a perfect book!

This is a history nerd's dream come true. I was impressed with the quality of the ebook and highly recommend it to my similarly interested friends.

The Splendor Solis was a 16th century Alchemical text. This is a modern new translation with commentaries by academics. Dr. Stephen Skinner is familiar to me in relation to esoteric material, so I found this very interesting.

It's very much an academic work, so of most interest to people with an interest either in ancient Alchemy or in the history of esoteric texts. It is, as one reviewer said, basically a biography of the book, but I would add a fascinating analysis of hidden meanings in the 22 color plates that were originally hand drawn. My advance review copy didn't show these plates, but I found them online as the British Library has a photographed copy.

A bit dry at times, but a very interesting and informative book.

Pros: in depth discussion, full translation, summaries are useful for quick reference

Cons:

Note: I received a copy for review from the publisher via NetGalley. My copy did not include the manuscript reproduction pages for the illustrations, therefore I cannot comment on the images or their quality.

The book gives the historical background of the Splendor Solis and then a new English translation of the Harley manuscript 3469 version, currently held by the British Library.

There is an introduction and four chapters, followed by a glossary of alchemical terms and other alchemical works the Splendor Solis refers to. The chapters are: History and authorship of Splendor Solis, Inventing an alchemical adept: Splendor Solis and the Paracelsian movement, Commentary on the text and plates of Splendor Solis and finally Translation of the Harley manuscript.

The chapter on the history of the manuscript is very scholarly and quite dry. I appreciated that Prinke mentioned the history of scholarship regarding the Splendor Solis, in terms of printed volumes, manuscripts, the illustrations and attempts at discovering the author and illustrators. He even includes recent scholarship on the topics. I was disappointed that there was such a limited discussion on the antecedents of the artworks, the topic that most interested me. Instead of showing examples of where the Splendor Solis’ illustrators received inspiration, he simply offhandedly mentioned the works with little to go in if you’d like to research this topic yourself. When discussing the Aurora Consurgens’s artistic lending he merely cites the page of an English translation that got a 200 copy print run in 2011 and is quite difficult to find. I did find an older reproduction of the Aurora Consurgens online, but Prinke gave so little descriptive information that I found it difficult to identify which images he was comparing.

I really enjoyed the essay on the Paracelsian movement. There was a lot of information here I was unaware of and it was fascinating to learn about.

The next chapter summarizes all of the passages in the manuscript and gives a thorough description of the illustrations and their meanings. It is here that the reproduced manuscript pages are found. The information is in clear language with translations of any text that appears in the images.

I was a little surprised there was a summary of the text followed by a full translation, but the translation’s fairly dense, so it’s actually quite useful to have read the summary and explanation before digging into it. It meant I came away with a much better understanding of what I read.

As stated above, I can’t judge the quality of the images included in this edition, but the text alone is definitely worth the price. It’s a deep dive into the Splendor Solis and a worthwhile addition to your collection if you’re interested in alchemy.

What a fascinating read! I've always been interested in alchemy and the beautiful alchemical manuscripts that describe this art, so this collection of essays about the 'Splendor Solis' was a really interesting read. Everything is very well-laid out and written accessibly. I particularly enjoyed reading about the different provenances of the information that makes up this text. A super book.

As someone who has recently become fascinated with alchemy, I was excited to read this book. I had not heard of the famous alchemical text 'Splendor Solis' so I was eager to learn more about this elusive piece. This book was a full English translation of 'Splendor Solis' with full colour plates of the artwork included, so it was essentially a concise biography of the manuscript.

'Splendor Solis' was a 16th century piece detailing the Great Work of alchemy- transmuting base materials into the famous Philosopher’s Stone. This book was an in-depth look and modern translation of the original copy. Included was a brief history of 'Splendor Solis,' looking at its revival in the 20th century, and how to properly read this manuscript. Readers should not try to analyze the famous text using psycho-spiritual techniques whereby the scientific and chemical process of alchemy becomes unimportant. I appreciated the authors strong argument for reading 'Splendor Solis' as it is, because at the end of the day, it is a material and physical experience. The history and authorship chapters were fascinating because as with most famous occult texts, the author is unknown. I thought the illustrations of the manuscripts were beautiful and moving and I can understand why it is such an important piece in alchemical history.

Overall as someone fairly new to alchemy, I thought the translations and explanations of the text were fairly easy to understand and I cannot wait to learn more about this beautiful art.

I've been fascinated by alchemy for a long time and my curiosity increased when I read a couple of novel where alchemy plays an important role.
I was more than happy to read a book about alchemy and discover more about this important text.
It's a fascinating and engaging reading that helps to have a better understanding of what alchemy is and what this text is and the meaning of the different illustrations.
I think that this is a book that must be read as a paper book to see the amazing illustrations at best.
Highly recommended if you are curious about alchemy.
Many thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for this ARC