Benjamin Woolley is a writer, and this HarperCollins book is his trade biography of John Dee, the Elizabethan mathematician, astrologer and advisor to Queen Elizabeth I, drawing on Dee's own surviving diaries and papers to reconstruct both his serious scientific work and his angelic conjuring experiments with Edward Kelley. Its strength is a well documented account grounded directly in Dee's own manuscript record, treating him as a genuinely complex historical figure who worked seriously at mathematics and navigation as well as at magic, rather than flattening him into either a pure scientist or a pure occultist. Its limit is that it is a trade biography aimed at a general readership rather than a specialist academic monograph, so a claim needing close textual analysis of Dee's own angelic conversations or magical diaries is better served by an academic edition of those primary texts.
Facts
Assessment
Reliability Tier2
A well documented trade biography of John Dee drawing on the manuscript record, from a general commercial publisher rather than an academic press. NotesWell-documented trade biography drawing on the manuscript record.
Citation
AuthorBenjamin Woolley
PublisherHarperCollins
Publication Year2001
Source Typebook
Claims Backed By This Source (43 claims)
This source backs 43 claims across the atlas. As facts: 26 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate. As cited relationships: 9 holds. Plus 7 entities citing it as a general reference with no single fact or relationship attached.
Disposition By Topic
- Historical Figures, 11 claims: 7 well-attested, 1 holds, 3 general references.
- Disciplines, 8 claims: 3 well-attested, 4 holds, 1 general references.
- Sources, 7 claims: 7 well-attested.
- Sacred Objects & Ritual Items, 6 claims: 2 well-attested, 3 holds, 1 general references.
- Articles, 5 claims: 5 well-attested.
- Artifacts & Relics, 3 claims: 1 well-attested, 1 holds, 1 general references.
- Scripts & Magical Alphabets, 3 claims: 1 well-attested, 1 scholarly debate, 1 general references.
Well-attested
26Sacred Objects & Ritual Items
Scripts & Magical Alphabets
Scholarly debate
1Scripts & Magical Alphabets
Holds
9Sacred Objects & Ritual Items
General References
7Sacred Objects & Ritual Items
Scripts & Magical Alphabets
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.
Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.
View At A Past Year
The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.