Haleking
John Bossy: Simon Forman, 22 February 2001
The Notorious Astrological Physician of London: Works and Days of Simon Forman
by Barbara Howard Traister.
Chicago, 260 pp., £19, February 2001,0 226 81140 9 Show More
by Barbara Howard Traister.
Chicago, 260 pp., £19, February 2001,
Dr Simon Forman: A Most Notorious Physician
by Judith Cook.
Chatto, 228 pp., £18.99, January 2001,0 7011 6899 4 Show More
by Judith Cook.
Chatto, 228 pp., £18.99, January 2001,
“... men and women. Well, Forman may have been a one-off city goat, as his contemporary the Italian miller Menocchio, recorded by Carlo Ginzburg, may have been a one-off village sceptic; but you can’t deny that he provides a heap of evidence about the penchant for adultery of Elizabethan wives. And just as Rowse’s speculations about Emilia Bassano were not ... ”