The laborator, or, School of arts : containing a large collection of valuable secrets, experiments, and manual operations in arts and manufactures, highly useful to gilders, jewellers, enamellers, goldsmiths, dyers, cutlers, pewterers, joiners, japanners, book-binders, plasterers, artists, and to the workers in metals in general : and in plaster of paris, wood, ivory, bone, horn, and other materials

Creator

Smith, Godfrey, active 18th century

Date

• 1799

Publisher

London: Printed by C. Whittingham for H. Symonds [etc.]

Summary

• Sixth edition.</br></br>"The Laboratory; or, School of arts..." (6th edition, 1799) is part of a genre of "books of secrets" that spanned several centuries. These books of practical chemistry assisted artisans and housekeepers with the technology necessary to, for example, combine metals to make brass, distill spirits, compound dyes and paints, concoct medicines, perfumes and cosmetics, and more. "Laboratory" was initially published in 1738, and many subsequent editions followed through 1810. Author/compiler(s) Godfrey and/or George Smith translated the first London edition from a German book of secrets, "Der curieusen kunst- und werck-schul," published in Nuremberg, which also went through multiple editions dating from 1696 through 1782. Although these books kept constant the goal of transmitting technological information and recipes to the layperson, specific contents and explanations could vary from edition to edition. Both needs and processes could change over time. That fact makes the long sequence of editions useful for comparative analysis. Digitized here is the 1799 London edition of "Laboratory," in two volumes. Local scholars can also consult editions of 1738, 1739, 1740, 1750, 1770, and 1799 in print originals at University of Wisconsin-Madison Special Collections. Various editions can also be found online via licensed "Eighteenth Century Collections Online" and at the Internet Archive's Open Library project or on microform. UW-Madison libraries also own a 1696 print edition of "Der curieusen kunst- und werck-schul."