Alchemy in Art and Entertainment - Novels and Plays

Novels and Plays

Like alchemy in visual art, the intersection of alchemy and literature can be broken down into four categories:

  1. The alchemical texts themselves;
  2. Satirical attacks on alchemists;
  3. Stories that incorporate alchemical iconography; and
  4. Works that are structurally alchemical, known as literary alchemy.

In the first category are the writings of alchemists. Beginning with Zosimos of Panopolis (300 CE) and extending through the history of alchemy, texts appear in the alchemical corpus that are more allegorical than technical. A much later example of this can be found in The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (1616).

In the second category are critiques of alchemical charlatanism. Starting in the fourteenth century, some writers lampooned alchemists and used them as the butt of satirical attacks. Some early and well-known examples are:

  • Dante Alighieri, Inferno (ca. 1308 - 1321).
  • William Langland, Piers Plowman (ca. 1360–1387).
  • Geofrey Chaucer, Canon's Yeoman's Tale (ca. 1380).
  • Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (ca. 1610).
  • William Godwin, St. Leon (1799).

A number of 19th-century works incorporated alchemy, including:

  • Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (1818).
  • Vladimir Odoevsky, Salamandra (1828).
  • Victor Hugo, The Hunchback of Notre-Dame (1831).
  • Goethe's Faust, Part 2 (1832).
  • Friedrich Halm, Der Adept, (1836)

In twentieth and twenty-first century examples, alchemists are generally presented in a more romantic or mystic light, and often little distinction is made between alchemy, magic, and witchcraft. Alchemy has become a common theme in fantasy fiction.

  • H. P. Lovecraft, The Alchemist (1916), and The Case of Charles Dexter Ward (1927).
  • Eric P. Kelly, The Trumpeter of Krakow (1928)
  • Antal Szerb, The Pendragon Legend (1934).
  • Marguerite Yourcenar, The Abyss (1968).
  • Colin Wilson, The Philosopher's Stone (1969)
  • Umberto Eco, Foucault's Pendulum (1988).
  • Teresa Edgerton, Child of Saturn (1989), The Moon in Hiding (1989) and The Work of the Sun (1990).
  • Terry Pratchett, Discworld novels (1983–present), Men at Arms (1993).
  • John Crowley, Ægypt (1987–2007).
  • Max McCoy, Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone (1995)
  • Richard Garfinkle, Celestial Matters (1996).
  • Gregory Keyes, The Age of Unreason series (1998-2001)
  • Neal Stephenson, The Baroque Cycle (2003–2004).
  • Martin Booth, Doctor Illuminatus: The Alchemist's Son (2003)
  • Margaret Mahy, Alchemy (2004).
  • Michael Scott, The Alchemyst: The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel (2007)

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