Books of secrets
Books of secrets were compilations of technical and medicinal recipes and magic formulae that began to be printed in the sixteenth century and were published continuously down to the eighteenth century. They constituted one of the most popular genres in early modern scientific publishing. The books of secrets contained hundreds of medical recipes, household hints, and technical recipes on metallurgy, alchemy, dyeing, making perfume, oil, incense, and cosmetics. The books of secrets supplied a great deal of practical information to an emerging new, middle-class readership, leading some historians to link them with the emerging secularistic values of the early modern period and to see them as contributing to the making of an ‘age of how-to.’
Some books of secrets, such as
Publications
- William Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).
- John K. Ferguson, Bibliographical Notes on Histories of Inventions and Books of Secrets. 2 vols. London: Holland Press, 1959.
References
- ^ W. Eamon, Science and the Secrets of Nature: Books of Secrets in Medieval and Early Modern Culture (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).