532 Reviews feme is indeed useful for quick reference as well as for detailed study.Discovering 'was Europa auch eint' (p. 23) is leftto the commitment of the reader who will use thiswonderful handbook both as a starting-point for comparison and for further immersion into the subject. It is to be hoped that this will not remain a 'marginal category' (p. 9) for long since it does contribute to an appreciation and under standing of our cultural heritage. The firststep has been taken in this long-awaited overview. The international or rather pan-European comparison of the develop ment, institutionalization, and systems of names has indeed the potential to build bridges, especially when linked to the various fields of history, politics, philosophy, geography, and sociocultural sciences. The varying structures of the essays included in the handbook are less a shortcoming than a challenge for future scholars. University of Regensburg Sandra Lehner Mystical Metal ofGold: Essays onAlchemy and Renaissance Culture. Ed. by Stanton J.Linden. New York: AMS. 2007. xviii+435 pp. $94.50. ISBN 978-0-404 62342-5. The history of alchemy has attracted increasing scholarly attention in recent years. Once regarded as theprovince ofmagic and superstition, the influence of alchemical techniques and concepts on thenatural philosophical, medical, religious, and politi cal thought of earlymodern Europe isnow recognized and studied by scholars from a wide range of disciplines. While several recent volumes have examined alchemy pri marily from the standpoint of the history of science, the present collection explores the role of alchemy on awider stage: the focus lessupon Boyle and Newton, and more upon the artists, poets, and patrons inspired by alchemical possibilities?literary, artistic, and spiritual, aswell asmetallurgical. As the editor, Stanton J. Linden, hints inhis introduction, thisvolume is inpart intended to redress a perceived disciplinary imbalance. Observing the role played by historians, especially those of science', in establishing occult philosophies as topics of scholarly debate, Linden concludes that 'it is hardly an exaggeration to say that they have controlled the agenda (p. x). Although historical accounts are certainly represented in thisvolume, it is therefore noteworthy that half the contributors hail from literature departments, while the essays are markedly interdisciplinary in scope. The volume gathers sixteen essays on varying aspects of alchemical reception, divided into five parts which discuss, respectively, biographical information on individual alchemists (Thomas Charnock, Arthur Dee, and Edward Kelley), surviving artefacts and texts, the relationship between 'metallurgical' and 'spiritual*alchemy, the appropriation of alchemical con cepts by earlymodern English authors, and 'new directions' in thefield, encompass ing such diverse approaches as gender studies, art history, and postmodern fiction. Most of the essays deal with theperiod from 1500 to 1700, although thefifteenth century alchemist George Ripley (c. 1415-c. 1490) provides a touchstone through out: as the author of texts diligently copied and compiled by later alchemists MLR, 104.2, 2009 533 (discussed in an article by George Keiser), who described the practical aspects of alchemy using religious analogies (articles by Linden and Michael T.Walton), and who gave his name?however questionable the attribution?to the intriguing group of emblematic 'Ripley Scrolls' (here usefully catalogued by R. IanMcCallum). The majority of essays are text-based, evaluating the reception of alchemical ideas in both manuscript and print.Manuscript transmission is discussed inReiser's excel lent study of the interest inMiddle English alchemical verse in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, surveying evidence for the editing and painstaking collation ofmedieval treatises by their earlymodern editors. A helpful survey ofprinted alche mical compendia is provided by Thomas Willard, while Penny Bayer considers the evidence for women's alchemical activity inferred from a range of sources, including printed books, correspondence, and commonplace books. However, thevolume also gives space to other evidence of alchemical activity, notably Vladimir Karpenko's fascinating investigation of coins and medals reputedly cast from alchemically pro duced gold. In examining these concrete relics of alchemical obsessions in the courts of earlymodern Europe, Karpenko also addresses a perennial problem facing the historian of alchemy?the reliabilityof surviving testimony to the truthof alchemical transmutations. The volume's vaguely 'NewAge'-y title (actually borrowed fromThomas Browne's ReligioMedici) points to another theme which has often taxed scholars: the...