Add MS 78418

EVELYN PAPERS. Vol. CCLI. `Les Choses Necessaires a la Composition de la Pierre des Sages'; 17th cent. French. Copy in a calligraphic hand of a text concerning the philosopher's stone. Consisting of a preface of eleven chapters addressed by the author to his son, followed by `La Practique’ of the chapters, two `Papiers volants’, `La grande Branche Reyne ou Particulier reel ou veritable, and the addition by Evelyn, headed `Premiere Colomne contenant les deux Oeuvres Physiques …’, begun in Evelyn's hand and continued by his amanuensis Richard Hoare, with the note at the beginning, `The 11: chap: is the true preface to this: which I had not at that tyme those papers were bound up: This being the most rare of du Bois Manuscripts'. With his ownership inscription on the fly-leaf, `E Libris Evelynis Parississ 1650 Meliora Retinete'. Item 13 in the Manuscripts section of John Evelyn’s library catalogue, Add MS 78632, f. 129 below. See also Michael Hunter, `John Evelyn in the 1650s', Science and the Shape of Orthodoxy (Woodbridge, 1995), p. 43. Formerly Evelyn MS 56.

Contemporary binding of mottled calf, gilt ruled and stamped with Evelyn's monogram in each corner and his bookplate with motto and coat of arms in the centre. 290 x 205mm.