The House Of Doctor Dee (Revisited.)

Reread a couple of Peter Ackroyd books recently. He has a very nice section of books in the room where I keep them. His work is always rewarding and more than bears up to rereading ,with layers of information like rich seams never quite worked out, so to speak. I discovered this with his books Hawksmoor and Chatterton when revisited.( But not so much with The Last Will And Testament Of Oscar Wilde, which of all his really work I would have expected to reward most.. Tra lal la...perhaps third time lucky, one does not like to give up even on the ghost of Oscar Wilde.)
             Love the cover of this edition of the book. It is a copy of the portrait of John Dee which hangs in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford. I do not know who painted it. He has the sort of face I would have imagined of one hanging around on the fringe of the Elizabethan Court, or a Tiger Lillies gig ( a gig is a live musical presentation that involves a gathering of people, yes, I know, who have come together to listen to music they like to listen to. People used to do this frequently in Olden Times.) John Dee looks most august, he has the eyes of a man who knows things one probably should not, as though he has peaked behind the curtain of creation. this was after all a man who conversed with angels, possibly demons. using an Irishman, Edward Kelly, as his medium, his scryer, communicating with angels through a dark mirror.
              John Dee was once imprisoned in The Tower Of London, sent there by the will of Queen Mary, the original Bloody Mary., Queen Elizabeth's older sister, daughter to Henry Vlll. Imprisoned there around the same time as Elizabeth herself, for daring to project a horoscope, detailing the passing of the former and the ascent of the latter.These were dangerous times to be a royal, with family members being the main threat to ones future.
             The novel straddles centuries, from the london of the sixteenth century to the London of the present day. As a young man takes ownership of the house of his deceased father, an old house in Clerkenwell. The house of Doctor John Dee. A house filled with secrets now owned by a man made of secrets. This is dark stuff, with dark magicks soaked into the very foundations.
              Much like the city of London itself.