A late Eighteenth/early 19th Century Cunning Man’s Textbook:
Ebenezer Sibley’s
A New & Complete Illustration of
The Celestial Science of Astrology
1813
vol II
Provenance: Wales, village of Llanfyllin, Powys. Records show the existence of an apothecary family in Llanfyllin as early as the 1600’s.
vol II of the work bound in original brown sheepskin with very early repairs and rebacking probably by original owner.
Retains a local surgeons ticket contemporary with the printing of the volume.
Practitioners of cunning magic, folk magicians and village apothecaries often used textbooks of astrology to aid in their prognostications, Sibley’s treatise is remarkable in that it fuses astrology with the practices of magic and necromancy.
This copy of Ebenezer Sibley’s ‘New and Complete Illustration of Astrology’ (vol 2 only), bears a blank ticket request of the executors of one Richard Davies of Llanfyllin being used as a bookmark.
Large quarto, 476pp, illustrated throughout with numerous engravings, horoscopes, magical diagrams. Original sheepskin binding, contemporary red calf spine label. Evidence of rebacking and repair is very early, likely by an original owner. Interior coloration to prelims neither damp nor ink but appears to be the remains of some kind of unguent or medicinal preparation.
Highly unusual and rare item.
