The Alchemist Paperback – January 1, 2011

I was recommended a book named "The alchemist", however did not initially ask for the author so I bought this title by accident. In the first few lines of the book the line "I fart at thee" appears. While it was rather amusing and lead to some questions about the recommendations, I slowly made it to pages 14/15 where an exchange of rather creative, old fashioned name calling takes place. That was as far as I was willing to go and for the first time I closed a book with no intend to open it back up. This is written as a play, congratulations if you can stomach reading all the way through, however overall I would consider reading this book torture and a perfect way to punish literature students or misbehaving kids....

Nicely formatted, easy to read, but this e-book does require patience to lookup archaic word-meanings and historical & cultural allusions (no footnotes or annotations). Also, a (very) small part of the dialogue is in Spanish, but without English translations...not a big deal, just a minor inconvenience, for most readers, to Google the Spanish-to-English translations. I enjoy reading Shakespeare, and reading Ben Johnson's "The alchemist" was a similar pleasure--entertaining, funny, and a quick trip back in time that reaffirms that some things about people never change.

This is a review of the edition, not the play, which is wonderfully funny. The recent (summer 2016) RSC production was terrific! This edition is a school text which does not fully gloss the play but only some of the difficult words. Presumably a teacher in the classroom could discuss words and passages and so forth. But it served my purpose, which was to review the play before seeing the RSC performance I mentioned--it was thin enough to fit into my suitcase. I don't believe a fuller Arden edition is available, and who could carry around a full scholarly edition of Jonson's plays?

Fast delivery. As described.

there is no good annotations

It's the old version and it was too complicated.

This is NOT the famous scifi novel. My new roommate recommended this book so I read it to get to know her better. I kept reading because I was trying to be nice. But after 40 pages I quit and asked her how she could possibly be so boring. Turns out it's the wrong book. Worst 40 pages I've ever read. I know I was expecting a different book but I can't imagine how anyone would enjoy reading this. The book felt like one huge run-on sentence and never seemed to make a point.

Ben Jonson is a great writer who's only mistake must be to have been born at the same time as the great Shakespeare. Full of satire and sexual innuendos, The Alchemist narrates the tale of two rogues, one the alchemist who promises people to turn all their items to gold and the other his helper. Matched with a prostitute who fools around with them it makes a comic tale of lust and greed.

I'm not sure what the value of this book is for the average student studying it for A levels or degree, it has no explanatory notes or any commentary whatsoever alongside the text.The list of academic papers can be accessed using GoogleWould not recommend.

This is a great piece of writing which still has resonance and relevance today,dealing,as it does,with aspiration and greed and folly.

My brother bought me this book years ago. It is an amazing read and everyone can find something that relates to them personally in this book. It is in the top 10 books to read and enjoy... which you will!

The formatting of the kindle edition is terrible. There are no line breaks between dialogue so the whole play reads as one long paragraph.

Debo admitir que me equivoqué al comprar este libro, ya que en realidad deseaba adquirir la obra de Paulo Coelho. Luego compré este último libro que me pareció excelente.