The Astronomer and the Witch

Johannes Kepler's Fight for his Mother

Ulinka Rublack author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Oxford University Press

Published:22nd Oct '15

Should be back in stock very soon

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The Astronomer and the Witch cover

Shortlisted for the 2017 Dingle Prize

The extraordinary tale of Johannes Kepler, one of the most admired astronomers of all time, and the six long years spent defending his mother from her neighbours' accusations of witchcraft. A story which takes us to the heart of Kepler's changing world.Johannes Kepler (1571-1630) was one of the most admired astronomers who ever lived and a key figure in the scientific revolution. A defender of Copernicus´ s sun-centred universe, he famously discovered that planets move in ellipses, and defined the three laws of planetary motion. Perhaps less well known is that in 1615, when Kepler was at the height of his career, his widowed mother Katharina was accused of witchcraft. The proceedings led to a criminal trial that lasted six years, with Kepler conducting his mother's defence. In The Astronomer and the Witch, Ulinka Rublack pieces together the tale of this extraordinary episode in Kepler's life, one which takes us to the heart of his changing world. First and foremost an intense family drama, the story brings to life the world of a small Lutheran community in the centre of Europe at a time of deep religious and political turmoil - a century after the Reformation, and on the threshold of the Thirty Years' War. Kepler's defence of his mother also offers us a fascinating glimpse into the great astronomer's world view, on the cusp between Reformation and scientific revolution. While advancing rational explanations for the phenomena which his mother's accusers attributed to witchcraft, Kepler nevertheless did not call into question the existence of magic and witches. On the contrary, he clearly believed in them. And, as the story unfolds, it appears that there were moments when even Katharina's children struggled to understand what their mother had done...

A breath-taking account of a brave family who boldly fought for justice. * Early Science and Medicine *
Compelling. * Hannah Murphy, Isis Review *
Ulinka Rublack shows wonderful sensitivity about mothers, old age, and female struggles, as she unpicks the trial of Johannes Kepler's mother for witchcraft. * Marina Warner, Book of the Year 2015, Observer *
An enthralling book. * Jennifer Rampling, Nature *
Excellent ... meticulously researched and wonderfully readable. * John Banville, Literary Review *
Ulinka Rublack's book about Katharina Kepler, and her sons extraordinary defence of her, is fine-grained microhistory, but it's also revealing of the larger ideas that framed their world ... Superstition and science, rather than being successive stages in the ascent of reason, co-existed so closely and dynamically that the definition of neither is reliable. The Astronomer and the Witch illustrates this complexity, and its transitions, with agility and sensitivity. * Malcolm Gaskill, London Review of Books *
[an] important new book ... [which] offers an extended meditation on family relationships, and in particular that indelible but intangible bond between a mother and her son. * Jan Machielsen, Times Literary Supplement *
[A] superb study ... The author wanted her book to provide a "better understanding of individuals, but also of families, a community, and an age". It succeeds triumphantly. * Jonathan Wright, Catholic Herald *
Rublack tells [this] story with a novelist's panache. Even if you know what happened, it's a compelling book. She sketches the vivid details that make the time, place and characters come to life ... The Tale of the Witch and the Mathematician - unmissable. * Mark Greener, Fortean Times *
In 1615, an illiterate widow is accused of witchcraft in a German town. Her son, the famous astronomer Johannes Kepler, conducts her defence in a trial that drags on for six years. In this enthralling book, Ulinka Rublack reconstructs the struggle over Katharina Kepler's fate. We enter a small-town world of rivalries, friendships, deference, power and vulnerability, a world in which religious faith, scientific knowledge and folk belief are dangerously intertwined. Vividly drawn and subtly observed, The Astronomer and the Witch opens a window onto the inner life of a past that is strange and remote, but also unsettlingly familiar. * Christopher Clark *

ISBN: 9780198736776

Dimensions: 242mm x 173mm x 21mm

Weight: 744g

400 pages