Alchemy Illustrated: The Quest for Gold & the Elixir of Life

Long shrouded in secrecy, alchemy is now recognized as the ancestor of modern chemistry.Before the advent of modern science, alchemy was the ancient art of transformation, a way of combining matter to create a divine force. Today alchemy retains a strong pull on the imagination, with its tales of turning base metals into gold and mixing potions to create the elixir of life, a draught that brings immortality.Alchemy Illustrated offers a vivid illustrated guide to this lost art, introducing the reader to the main developments in alchemy and the most famous people to have dabbled in this speculative science.