Dee, John 1527-1608
English alchemist, geographer and mathematician

Born in London, he was educated in London, Chelmsford, and at St John's College, Cambridge, and became one of the original Fellows of Trinity College, Cambridge (1546). He earned the reputation of a sorcerer by using a mechanical beetle in a representation of Aristophanes's Peace. He claimed to have found in the ruins of Glastonbury a quantity of the Elixir, and his assistant, Edward Kelley, professed to confer with angels by means of Dee's magic crystal, and talked him into consenting to a community of wives. As astrologer to Queen Mary I, Tudor, he was imprisoned but acquitted on charges of plotting her death by magic (1555). For most of his life he was concerned with the search for the Northwest Passage to the Far East, aiding the exploration by his navigational and geographical knowledge. He wrote numerous works on logic, mathematics, astrology, alchemy, navigation, geography and the calendar (1583), but died in poverty. His eldest son, Arthur Dee (1579-1651), was also an alchemist, and a friend of Sir Thomas Browne.

Bibliography: Thomas Smith, The Life of John Dee (1992)