Recent Works on John Dee (1988-2005)

Dee and his books: lessons from the history of mathematics for primary and middle school teachers

“…As we saw above, Dee himself was well aware of the power of knowledge, but also of the dangers of having the books he did (see Clulee 1988;Clucas 2006), and how this might be perceived by others. It may be interesting to note that he is recorded as having had two dreams of his library being destroyed (before the actual fact), one of which he described as a nightmare in which death and the destruction of books were almost equated with each other: I dremed that I was dead, and after my bowels were taken out I walked and talked with diverse, and among other the Lord Thresorer who was come to my house to burn my bokes.…”

“…Burn but his books. (The Tempest,III,ii,(86)(87)(88)(89)(90)(91)(92)(93) Dee was to experience a not dissimilar calamity in his own life when his library was ransacked by an angry mob (see, for example, Clulee 1988;Clucas 2006). Dee was indeed well aware of the power his books held -the power that anyone who accessed the knowledge contained within them would have.…”

“… See Clulee (1988) andClucas (2006); apart from oblique references to Dee's cryptanalytical skills,Pesic (1997) comes closest to actually describing some work of Dee in this regard. 4 Dee's discovery and further involvement with the Voynich manuscript, his role at Elizabeth's court, and his Monas hieroglyphica are all described in numerous biographies on Dee.…”

John Dee and the sciences: early modern networks of knowledge

“…4Birkbeck College (University of London), 20–21 April 1995 (organised by Stephen Clucas; papers published in Clucas, 2006a); Jozsef Attila University, Szeged, 16–18 July 1998 (organised by György E. Szőnyi); University of Aarhus, 6–9 December 2001 (organised by Jan Bäcklund).…”