Description
About the Author
Susan Mitchell Sommers is Professor of History at Saint Vincent College in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. She earned an M.A. and Ph.D. from Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Sommers is most recently the author of Thomas Dunckerley and English Freemasonry (2012). Her current book project, with Professor Andrew Prescott, is Searching for the Apple Tree: The Early Years of English Freemasonry.
Reviews
Blakeans will be thoroughly intrigued. * Wayne C. Ripley, Blake/An Illustrated Quarterly *
Sommers shows us that Ebenezer Sibly matters precisely because he is not as commanding or intellectually significant a figure as most of his previous biographers, taking him at his word, have assumed. In her hands, his * Christine Ferguson, Aries Journal for the Study of Western Esotericism *
Susan Sommers has unearthed a fascinating cast of characters, largely unknown. She brilliantly integrates the improbable life of Ebenezer Sibly, shoemaker turned publisher, astrologer, quack, forger, bigamist, Swedenborgian, and freemason. With moderate income he traveled the more exotic byways of Georgian England, a con-man who allows us to experience a lost world, one that Sommers' extraordinary research reveals. * Margaret C. Jacob, Distinguished Professor of History, UCLA *
In a mesmerising piece of historical detective work, Susan Mitchell Sommers traces the remarkable journeys of three brothers from an artisan family in an esoteric demimonde of lottery fraud, masonic conspiracies, Swedenborgianism, sermon piracy, astrology and quack medicine. A masterpiece of microhistory, The Siblys of London offers a compelling and memorable picture of the colourful esoteric underbelly of late eighteenth-century life. * Andrew Prescott, Professor of Digital Humanities, University of Glasgow *
Historians of esoteric religion and the occult are exploring treacherous waters where deceptions and distortions are easily assumed to be true. The strength of Susan Sommers' book is that she is attuned to deceit, shrewd in her perceptions, and tells the truth about these colourful brothers with verve and colour. * Peter Lineham, Professor of History, Massey University *
In this fascinating, deeply researched book, Susan Sommers evokes the mercurial careers of the male and female members of the Sibly family, including astrologers, patent medicine sellers, court reporters, Freemasons and a daring con-man. Tracing their rise from obscurity to national notoriety, Sommers shows how they exploited opportunities created by the upheavals of the period. Her work casts new light on the popular culture of the 18th and 19th centuries. * Professor Paul Monod, author of Solomon's Secret Arts: The Occult in the Age of Enlightenment *
A fascinating work that enriches our knowledge of the "esoteric" milieu in eighteenth-century England. * Grzegorz Fraszczak, Religious Studies Review *
Book Information
ISBN 9780190687328
Author Susan Mitchell Sommers
Format Hardback
Page Count 362
Imprint Oxford University Press Inc
Publisher Oxford University Press Inc
Weight(grams) 612g
Dimensions(mm) 160mm * 236mm * 31mm