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Audiobook edition · 4 h 48 minPaperback · 6 × 9 in · printing soonHardcover · 6 × 9 in · printing soonAbout this book
What if the dream of changing metals holds more than a hunger for gold?
In Alchemy: Ancient and Modern, H. Stanley Redgrove explores a world where work with metals meets philosophy and religious belief. He traces the art through Egypt, Greece and Arabia to the scholars, doctors and dreamers of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. At its heart lies a bold belief: all matter is one.
Redgrove introduces the philosopher's stone, the principles of sulphur and mercury, and thinkers such as Roger Bacon. He also asks whether alchemy concerns substances or the soul. Writing as a chemist, he connects these old questions with discoveries of his own day, when radioactive elements reveal that one element can become another.
What you’ll discover
- The unity of matter Explore the belief that gives the alchemists' search a purpose beyond the pursuit of gold.
- Craft meets philosophy Follow the meeting of metalwork, dyes and glass with Greek thought and older religious ideas.
- The philosopher's stone Encounter this central alchemical idea alongside sulphur and mercury, understood as principles rather than ordinary substances.
- Substances or the soul Consider why some readers see alchemy as a spiritual path rather than work with matter.
- An old dream reconsidered See why discoveries about radioactive elements lead Redgrove to take the ancient ambition seriously.
Who will love it
For readers who love the history of science, curious lives, and old ideas seen in a new light, especially where ancient philosophy and modern physics meet.
What’s inside
The key ideas, in the 15-minute summary
- An old dream deserves another look
- Heaven and earth share one pattern
- Metals were thought to grow toward gold
- The Stone promised perfection in matter
- Uncertain authorities passed on real knowledge
- Fraud does not explain every account
- Chemistry advanced while unity remained unsettled
- Radioactivity reopened the question of transmutation
- Alchemy joined the furnace and the soul
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Alchemy: Ancient and Modern
by H. Stanley Redgrove · 1911
Redgrove asks whether the old dream of turning lead into gold finds support in radium and the electron.
Challenging2–5 hours to read20 languages
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In short
Can the old dream of turning lead into gold be more than a fable? In 1910 the chemist H. Stanley Redgrove said it deserved a second look.
Alchemy: Ancient and Modern at a glance
- Reading time
- About 2 h 35 min2 h 5 min fast, 3 h 5 min slow
- Length
- 37,500 words
- Library level
- Challenging long sentences, a rich vocabulary
- First published
- 1911by H. Stanley Redgrove
Reading time at 238 words a minute (fast 300, slow 200). How long the classics take to read · Updated
From the 15-minute summary · Key idea 1
Alchemy was both laboratory science and mystical philosophy
Redgrove opens by correcting a common picture. Alchemy is usually described as the art of making gold with a Philosopher's Stone. He says that is only the surface. Alchemy was a philosophy and an experimental science together.
Two camps have misread it. The transcendental school says the furnaces are a code, and the real subject is the perfecting of the soul. Chemists see only crude recipes and fraud. Redgrove sides with neither. The lives of the alchemists show that they really did labour at furnaces.
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Which edition is right for me
- 15-minute summary
- The key ideas of the whole book in about 13 minutes. A good first look, or a refresher.
Details
- First published
- 1911
- Language
- English
- Level
- Challenging
Cite this edition
Redgrove, H. Stanley. Alchemy: Ancient and Modern. Library of Alexandria, 2026, libraryofalexandria.com/products/alchemy-ancient-and-modern.
Redgrove, H. S. (2026). Alchemy: Ancient and modern. Library of Alexandria. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/alchemy-ancient-and-modern (Original work published 1911)
Redgrove, H. Stanley. Alchemy: Ancient and Modern. Library of Alexandria, 2026. https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/alchemy-ancient-and-modern.
@book{redgrove2026alchemy,
author = {Redgrove, H. Stanley},
title = {Alchemy: Ancient and Modern},
publisher = {Library of Alexandria},
year = {2026},
url = {https://libraryofalexandria.com/products/alchemy-ancient-and-modern},
note = {First published 1911}
}
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What is Alchemy: Ancient and Modern about?
It explains what alchemists believed and did, profiles famous adepts and frauds, traces how chemistry grew from alchemy, and argues that radioactivity and the electron echo the old idea that all matter springs from one source.
What did alchemists mean by the Philosopher's Stone?
It was the supposed substance that would change base metals into silver or gold and heal the body. Mystical writers also took it as a symbol of Christ and of the perfected soul.
What is the Emerald Tablet?
It is a short text of thirteen sentences credited to Hermes Trismegistos. It speaks of a One Thing from which all things come, and holds that what is below is like what is above.
The author
H. Stanley Redgrove
1887–1943 · English chemist and author
Author and botanical collector.
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