Astrolearn Astrology Books DVD Series: Products

Astrolearn Astrology Books DVD Series

Astrolearn now offers the following five compilations of Renaissance and early modern astrology books and magazines on DVD-Rom in searchable Adobe PDF format. Please click the following direct links to see the details of each compilation.

1. From Lilly to Partridge:
English Renaissance Astrology Texts, 1598-1723

2. From Sibly to Simmonite:
Source texts of the 19th century English astrological revival, 1784-1854

3. From Cooke to Pearce:
English and American Sources on Astrology, 1854-1894

4. Godfather of Modernity:
the Alan Leo Legacy Volume One –
Early Astrological Journals, 1890-1912

5. Itinerant to Eternity:
the Alan Leo Legacy Volume Two –
“Modern Astrology”, 1913-1938

All five DVDs are packed to the brim with high-quality full-colour scans newly taken since August 2013 by the British astrological researcher and historian Philip M. Graves from the original antiquarian printings in his private archive, as detailed in the bibliography at Astrolearn. Thus, these scans offer end-users an authentic historical experience as close to the original source as it is possible to get without holding it, and are not available online or from any other provider. In total, each DVD contains at least 9,940 photographic page impressions (including covers).

“The compendium of texts is itself a treasure trove for researchers, or for any practicing astrologer who wants to understand the mindset and chart examples of the late 19th and 20th-century” – Deborah Houlding, review of ‘Godfather of Modernity‘

“Philip Graves’ remarkable DVD, ‘From Sibly to Simmonite: Source Texts of the 19th Century English Astrological Revival, 1784-1854′ , makes their collective efforts widely available for the first time, by taking them from the dusty shelves of rare book shops and libraries and putting them into a modern, accessible format. This is a significant accomplishment and will put future historians and researchers in Mr. Graves’ debt; for the rest of us, it makes for an economical way to own an important part of our history” – Kirk Little, review of ‘From Sibly to Simmonite‘

Graves has been collecting the source material steadily for over ten years, informed by an acquired wealth of specialised knowledge of the early modern history of western astrology, and driven by a passion to preserve and disseminate to today’s historians and astrologers its literary legacy.

The scans on these DVDs are not to be mistaken for the low-quality monochrome scans produced by such providers as Early English Books Online and Google Books. Full-colour scans do not suffer from problems such as coarsened or broken-up and illegible text. These scans have been taken at a minimum resolution of 300 dpi (with some DVDs at 400) on a dedicated Plustek book scanner, and processed using the highest quality settings available (i.e. lossless) in Adobe Acrobat.

Moreover, Graves has taken particular care to ensure that the printed content of every page and every fold-out illustration (where present) has been fully captured, and has gone through each file thoroughly page by page to optimise the cropping of each page post-scan.

The result is astrological text scans of a superior quality to any others available today.

“Philip Graves’s DVD book collections are incredible. I received my copies of *From Sibly to Simmonite* and *From Lilly to Partridge* the other day, and they total nearly 70 texts, which itself is fantastic and will keep me busy for the rest of my life. However, I was unprepared for the sheer quality of the scans – it’s like having the book itself in front of you. I read the books on my iPad, and it was an unexpectedly aesthetically powerful experience” – Nina Gryphon.

OCR text produced automatically by Adobe Acrobat at the time of scanning allows users to search the contents of each file for words and terms of interest, a very useful feature for researchers.^[1]

All five titles are presently individually produced on demand on printable Verbatim Archival Gold DVD-R media, which are a high-end DVD-recordable storage media product rated for a life of 100 years by the manufacturer. Each DVD is then inkjet-printed in colour with a custom surface design, and finally packaged in convenient clear CD-style jewel cases lined with front inserts and tray cards that are also inkjet-printed with different custom colour designs.

Owing to recent relocation, and production facilities not yet having been re-established at our permanent new premises, the DVDs are temporarily unavailable. Once our production workstation is operational again, expected mid-2021, the price for each of the DVDs will be GBP £125, exclusive of shipping. This new projected price partly reflects the labour-intensive production process. We are not registered for VAT in the UK, so no additional VAT will be charged. For those not needing all the files on each DVD, we recommend waiting for the introduction of automated individual direct download sales instead.

The cost of shipping varies according to the country of destination. Within the UK and EU, discs can be shipped by airmail letter post at a cost of £5 for the first disc in each order, with any further discs in the same order shipped free of additional charge.

Outside the EU, shipping must be trackable, according to EU VAT regulations. The cheapest trackable shipping method to destinations outside the EU costs £12.50 for the first disc in each order, with the additional shipping cost of other discs in the same order currently offered free of additional charge.

Please address all wholesale and retail sales enquiries to solger [at] comhem.se. Thank you!

If you do not have a Paypal account or credit card or would prefer not to use Paypal, payment by direct international bank transfer in Great British Pounds will be available via BIC and IBAN once operations are resumed in 2021. Please contact Philip on solger [at] comhem.se with the details of your order (your name, address and products you wish to purchase), and he will provide the relevant BIC, IBAN and account holder details, and quote you a total including VAT where applicable and shipping costs, based on current mid-market exchange rates as set out at http://www.xe.com/currencyconverter/.

For bank transfers, all bank fees must be paid at source by you, the customer. We strongly recommend Transferwise, a very efficient international bank transfer service that uses mid-market foreign exchange rates, saving you money compared with Paypal on exchange rate spreads. The fee charged by Transferwise is typically just 1% of the total transaction amount (in some countries, this may be slightly higher), a considerably lower percentage than the typical 3-4% exchange rate spread on international Paypal purchases. We both end up saving money compared with Paypal.

For DVD orders by Paypal, continue to our shop. (Shop currently unavailable – see note above)

 

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[1] On the earliest texts, printed in old-fashioned fonts, OCR is somewhat unreliable, but it is as good as can be achieved with Adobe recognition technology.

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