Skyscript Astrology Forum

Ebenezer Sibly's New and Complete Illustration of the Celestial Science of Astrology is available for download at www.archive.org/details/newcompleteillus00sibluoft. The pdf version is great, but it is a huge file and so not very easy to navigate through.

There is also a txt only version, the result of someone running the book through an OCR scanner, but the text is so badly garbled it is almost incomprehensible in places. If you can get the PDF version it is well worth the wait because it has a lot of gems in it.

To make it easier to get to some of the highlights, I've been preparing some extracts for an update I am about to add to the homepage. But one of the pages in the section I am retyping is missing from this online edition - does anyone here have a copy of the text, and if so, can you check to see if page 860 and 861 are present? If so, I'd be really grateful for a scan or other kind of copy of those pages, so I can add in the missing text.

I'll add the URL for the page I am preparing as soon as it is finished.

Thanks
Deb

Thank you for the link. While I?m at it, thank you for your web site.

I tried the small txt file. It reads oddly, but can bring some revelations. Here is a quote about Saturn which I sighted immediately:

Saturn is the moft fupreme, or moft: elevated, of all the planets, being placed between Jupiter and the firmament, at about feven hundred and eighty millions of miles from the fun.

Being so far from the fun is bound to make one rather bleak and dreary. The poor guy.

I like that

I might be getting biased, on account of having eaten and slept with Sibly for the last couple of days, but I am liking his style. There's nothing very original, but at least he's realised the importance of offering examples.

I have just uploaded the new page I mentioned in the above post at www.skyscript.co.uk/sibly.html

The missing text is from the Oliver Cromwell section, so you can see the problem I have on this link:

http://skyscript.co.uk/sib_Cromwell.html

Hi Deb!

I have a complete copy of Sibly in one volume, ex-Nottingham Public Library believe it or not (I bought it on ebay a couple of years ago, then after seeing the library stamps contacted Nottingham's central library service to check that it had been legitimately withdrawn, as there were no deacquisition stamps to indicate this, but I was informed that it indeed had been; I must admit I was surprised that any British public library would want to get rid of a book of this quality, but there must have been some managerial directive behind it I suppose) so I'd be glad to scan in the two pages you want and email them to you as soon as I get the chance - preferably tomorrow - if nobody else has already done so.

My copy, incidentally, is a typically mixed-year edition, with the parts headed by different title-pages indicating that they were printed in various years from 1784-1790, but this still makes it a relatively early edition on the overall scale of things.

[You may be aware that Sibly's 'Complete Illustration' went through many reprints between the first editions of the mid-1780s and the last of the 1810s / 1820s, and this is probably why it's one of the most common astrological books of its period on the second-hand market, with literally several copies a year cropping up on ebay alone in my observation, though they still tend to command prices of $500-$1500 per copy, the popularity of the work with occult devotees beyond astrologers no doubt contributing to the maintenance of high values despite the very commonplace nature of the book.]

Best wishes,

Philip

As a Nottinghamshire lass myself, why does that not surprise me?

Ah well, our loss is your gain; and glad to know it has gone to a good home I am. Especially as you so generously agreed to provide the missing pages (as I was secretly hoping you would, having guessed that you were the person most likely to have a copy up there on your bookshelf )

Thans Phillip. No rush as I'll be out most of the weekend so I won't be able to pick this up again until early next week. But anytime you can send those pages over, I will be extremely grateful.

Deb

Thanks for sending the pages Phillip. They were very clear, and now I have added the missing text to the Cromwell page.