gems, jade, Fischer-Book, bibliography

A major eighteenth-century German biographical and bibliographical reference work compiled by Christian Gottlieb Jöcher. The Allgemeines Gelehrten-Lexicon provides alphabetically arranged accounts of scholars and writers, giving biographical information together with lists or notices of their published works. Published at Leipzig in four volumes between 1750 and 1751, it covers authors from antiquity through Jöcher’s own time and became an important reference source for European intellectual and publishing history. For research into the history of gemology and mineralogy, it is particularly useful for identifying early authors, variant names, biographical details and bibliographical information concerning works cited in older scientific and lapidary literature.