Back to my home page.

This is an embryonic page for biographical, philosophical, scientific, literary, theological, and cultural
        inquiry about Sir Kenelm Digby, 1603-1665.
If you have suggestions or additions, please do email me.

Surprisingly enough, Kenelm Digby really existed. Here are a few sources for the life and work of
this remarkable man.

Key Print Sources
Online Resources
Further Background References

Key Print Sources
John Aubrey, 'Kenelm Digby' and 'Venetia Digby', in Aubrey's Brief Lives, ed. Oliver
        Lawson Dick (Penguin Classics). Quintessential two-page gossipy biographies.
Kenelm Digby, Loose Fantasies, ed. V. Gabrieli (Roma, 1968). The first full edition.
Kenelm Digby, Two Treatises: in the one of which, the nature of bodies, in the other, the
        nature of man's mind, is looked into (Paris: Gilles Blaizot, 1644; reprint by Garland
        Publishing, 1978). The great work.

Betty Jo Dobbs, 'Studies in the Natural Philosophy of Sir Kenelm Digby, I Ambix 18 (1971), 1-25
        [introduction and the powder of sympathy]; II Ambix 20 (1973), 143-163 [Digby and alchemy];
        III Ambix 21 (1974), 1-28 [experimental alchemy in Digby's Book of Secrets]. NB Dobbs
        foreshadows a further article on Digby's biology: does anyone know if she ever published it?
Michael Foster, 'Sir Kenelm Digby (1603-65) as man of religion and thinker', The Downside Review
      1988, January, 35-58, and April, 101-125. Fairly detailed historical account, with fabulous
        material on the Catholic intrigues of the 1640s and 1650s.
John Henry, 'Atomism and Eschatology: Catholicism and natural philosophy in the Interregnum',
       British Journal for the History of Science 1982, 211-239. Brilliant historical detective work on
        intellectual, theological, and political dimensions of Digby's and Thomas White's work.
Bruce Janacek, 'Catholic Natural Philosophy: Alchemy and the Revivification of Sir Kenelm Digby',
        in Margaret J. Osler (ed), Rethinking the Scientific Revolution (Cambridge UP, 2000)
Allardyce Nicoll, 'Sir Kenelm Digby, poet, philosopher, and pirate of the Restoration', Johns
        Hopkins Alumni Magazine 21 (1933), 330-352. Apart from the strange title, a nice literary
        evocation of the life.
R.T. Petersson, Sir Kenelm Digby: the ornament of England 1603-1665 (Jonathan Cape, 1956).
        The best biography, rich and sentimental and detailed.
Davida Rubin, Sir Kenelm Digby F.R.S.: a bibliography based on the collection of K. Garth Huston
      (San Francisco: Jeremy Norman & Co, 1991). Detailed bibliography based on the collection of
        a Los Angeles surgeon and historical enthusiast.
Ann Sumner (ed.), Death, Passion, and Politics: van Dyck's portraits of Venetia Stanley and
        George Digby (Dulwich Picture Gallery, 1995). Includes colour plates of the portraits, and
        a number of useful essays, including 'Sir Kenelm Digby and Venetia Stanley: a love story
        of the 17th century' by Polly Amos and Ann Sumner; 'Venetia Digby: a perfect wife?' by
        Caroline Bowden; '"Whimseys of that Great Virtuoso": the thought of Sir Kenelm Digby' by
        Beverley Southgate; and 'Venetia's Death and Kenelm's Mourning' by Clare Gittings.
Roy Digby Thomas, Digby: the gunpowder plotter's legacy (Janus Publishing, 2001). Despite the
        curious title, this is a full-scale new biography of Kenelm. Lots of overlooked and neglected
        material.

Online Resources (please email with suggestions)

Digby: The Gunpowder Plotter’s Legacy ...A Feature Film in Development... by Dianne Thomas and Roy Digby Thomas
Van Dyck's portrait of Venetia on her Deathbed
'Sir Kenelm Digby', in The Catholic Encyclopedia
'Digby, Kenelm', in The Galileo Project.
'Who is Sir Kenelm Digby and what does he have to do with Hawthorne?'.
'Venetia Digby on her Deathbed', by Ann Sumner, History Today 45 (1995). You can access this
        online if you're in a library which subscribes to the journal via the Expanded Academic system:
        otherwise just look at Ann Sumner's edited collection as above.
'Pages from the Closet of Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt, Opened', from Spencer's Beer Pages. Includes
        recipes and lists of ingredients for 'Digby's' meath, metheglin, beer, and sack.
'Embryonic Individuals: the rhetoric of seventeenth-century embryology and the construction of early
        modern identity' , by Eve Keller, Eighteenth-Century Studies 33 (2000), 321-348 [online if your
        library has access to the Muse journals system].
'The Powder of Sympathy and the Problem of Longitude': Dava Sobel and Umberto Eco.
'A Spear Dipped in Poppy Juice?' by Charles Cameron, on the powder of sympathy, symmetry, &
        blood lust.
'Gayhurst', from the UK & Ireland Genealogy. "In 1642 there were 35 people named in the tax returns ...
        Between them they were assessed at 4 pounds 18 and 6 of which sum The Lady Digbie [ie
        Mary Mulsho, KD's mother] contributed 3 pounds."

Further Background References
E.W. Bligh, Sir Kenelm Digby and his Venetia (London, 1932). Wonderful 1930s sensibilities.
Brian Burch, 'Sir Kenelm Digby and Christchurch, Newgate Street', Guildhall Miscellany 2 (1964),
        248-256. Reprints documents relating to Digby's monument to Venetia, and his will.
William F Bynum, 'The Weapon Salve in Seventeenth Century English Drama', Journal of the
        History of Medicine 21 (1966), 8-23. Focus on an appalling play by the magnificently obscure
        Henry Glapthorne.
Kenelm Digby, Journal of a Voyage into the Mediterranean (Camden Society, 1868; reprint by
        AMS Press, 1968). Curiosities, obstacles, and interruptions to piracy.
Kenelm Digby, Observations Upon Religio Medici 1644 (reprint by the Scolar Press, 1973).
Kenelm Digby, The Closet of the Eminently Learned Sir Kenelme Digbie, Kt, Opened.
John F. Fulton, Sir Kenelm Digby: writer, bibliophile, and protagonist of William Harvey
        (New York: Peter & Katharine Oliver, 1937)
Vittorio Gabrieli, Sir Kenelm Digby: un inglese italianato nell'eta della controriforma (Roma,
        1957): pp.237-291 are letters and documents by Digby, including many from his mourning. See also
        further selections in Gabrieli's National Library of Wales Journal articles of 1955.
William F. Gafafer, 'Kenelm Digby, Seventeenth Century Psychotherapist', Human Biology 5 (1933),
        506-515. Disappointing.
Robert Gordon Grenell, 'Sir Kenelme Digby, Embryologist', Bulletin of the History of Medicine 10
        (1941), 48-62. ("The prevailing opinion among those who have written of Sir Kenelme Digby
        seems to be to the effect that he could appreciate the ideas of other minds, but was in no
        way an original, creative thinker himself. After a perusal of Digby's works, it is difficult to
        comprehend the basis for this conclusion.")
R.H. Kargon, History of Atomism (Oxford, 1966), chapter 7.
Peter Logan, Nerves and Narratives pp.115-7 on echopraxia and contagions of the imagination.
Ida Macalpine and Richard A. Hunter, 'A Case of True Allergy established by Patch Testing and
        reported by Sir Kenelme Digby in 1645', British Journal of Dermatology 68 (1956), 61-2.
Andrea Nye, The Princess and the Philosopher (1999), pp.42-44 on Digby, Elizabeth, & Descartes.
John Sutton, Philosophy and Memory Traces: Descartes to connectionism (Cambridge UP,
        1998), chapter 5: Digby on memory.

Thanks to Peter Anstey, Stephen Gaukroger, Russell Johnson, Annie Natalelli-Waloszek, Will Sutton,
    and Roy Digby Thomas.

Kenelm Digby and the Liquid Empire

Last updated 28 August 2006.
Back to my home page.