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I used to have a book that traced the history of books which had titles like "secrets of the universe explained", "secrets of chemistry exlained", or "secrets of magic revealed", etc. The author claimed that with the invention of the printing press a category of books of "secrets" proliferated. Today, we still see books revealing secrets of the universe.

So, this type of "secrets" books appears to be a genre.

Does anyone know this book? It is probably from 1980s or '90s.

Thanks.

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This book is apparently William Eamon's Science and the Secrets of Nature, but there are others that fit the bill, such as Wayne Shumaker's Natural Magic and Modern Science: Four Treatises, 1590-1657. The subject matter is described in a Wikipedia article. As the OP suggests, there was a genre of early printed books about secrets of nature, a notable example being the 1558 Natural Magic of J.B. della Porta. I don't have Eamon's book in front of me, but it surely discusses works such as the pre-Gutenberg gynecological work Secreta Mulierum.

Again, without checking Eamon, this tradition has a connection with the Natural Magic tradition, implied by the title of Shumaker's book. A vestige of this tradition was the television show Mr. Wizard which I remember watching as a child.

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