# library/john-dee — John Dee: Monas Hieroglyphica (1564) + A True & Faithful Relation (1659)

This folder holds **two works by / concerning Dr. John Dee** — the Elizabethan
mathematician, astronomer, astrologer, and magus whose angelic conversations and the
"Monas" symbol are load-bearing for the hermetic / stellar-letter lineage this project
traces. Both are public-domain scans of the original early-modern editions.

## (a) Monas Hieroglyphica

- **Edition**: *Monas Hieroglyphica Ioannis Dee, Londinensis, ad Maximilianum, Dei gratia
  Romanorum, Bohemiae et Hungariae regem sapientissimum* — printed at **Antwerp, 1564**.
  Latin. Public Domain. Author: John Dee (1527–1608).
- **Source**: archive.org item `monashieroglyphi00deej` (download:
  `https://archive.org/download/monashieroglyphi00deej/…`).
- **Files**:
  - `monas_hieroglyphica_1564_latin.txt` — OCR plain-text (DjVuTXT, 88 KB) of the Latin
    original. Theorems (THEOREMA I, III, IV, V… XXIII) are present, with the dedicatory
    epistle to Maximilian II ("MAXIMILIANVM", "Ex Musaeo nostro Antwerpiensi"). Note: this
    is a Renaissance emblem/symbolic book built around a single geometric figure, so the
    OCR of the running text is noisy (the diagram glyphs are rendered as glyph-soup). It is
    complete but best read alongside the PDF.
  - `monas_hieroglyphica_1564_latin.pdf` — the **scanned original** (6.8 MB), retained
    because the geometric diagrams and the Monas glyph itself are essential to the work
    and are not recoverable from the OCR text alone.
- **Translation note**: no public-domain English translation of the *Monas* is known (the
  standard J.W. Hamilton-Jones translation is 1947, still under copyright). The 1564 Latin
  original is therefore the public-domain text hosted here, per the project brief.

## (b) A True & Faithful Relation of what passed for many years between Dr. John Dee and some spirits

- **Edition**: *A True & Faithful Relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John
  Dee … and some spirits …*, edited with a preface by **Meric Casaubon**. **London:
  printed for Thomas Harper, 1659**. Public Domain. (Dee's original manuscript diaries,
  transcribed/edited by Casaubon.)
- **Source**: archive.org item `truefaithfulrela00deej` (download:
  `https://archive.org/download/truefaithfulrela00deej/truefaithfulrela00deej_djvu.txt`).
- **File**: `dee_true_faithful_relation_casaubon_1659.txt` — the **complete** 1659 folio
  (OCR plain-text, 2.07 MB, ~46,000 lines): Casaubon's Preface ("To the Reader"), Dee's
  angelic-conference diary entries dated 1583–1607 (Prague, Cracow, Mortlake), the
  apparitions of spirits, Dee's "Mathematical Preface", the letters of sundry great men
  and princes, and the closing matter ending "FINIS coronat opus."

## Completeness note

- *Monas*: complete 1564 Latin edition (text derivative + PDF for the diagrams).
- *True & Faithful Relation*: complete 1659 Casaubon folio. The OCR is from a 17th-century
  blackletter printing (long-s → f confusions are frequent), so spellings read oddly, but
  the text is complete, dated, and searchable.

Fetched 2026-08-14 from archive.org (Public Domain).