The Angel of the West Window — Gustav Meyrink

A complex and ambitious novel which centres on the life of the Elizabethan magus, John Dee, in England, Poland and Prague, as it intertwines past and present, dreams and visions, myth and reality in a world of the occult, culminating in the transmutation of physical reality into a higher spiritual existence. it was awarded The Occult Book of the Year and it will appeal to anyone interested in the occult, John Dee and Elizabethan era. The narrator believes he is becoming possessed by the spirit of his ancestor John Dee. The adventures of Dee and his disreputable colleague, an earless rogue called Edmund Kelley, form a rollicking 16th century variant on Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as they con their way across Europe in a flurry of alchemy and conjured spirits. At one point,Kelley even persuades Dee that the success of an occult enterprise depends on his sleeping with Dee's wife. Past, present, and assorted supernatural dimensions become intertwined in this odd and thoroughly diverting tale. Anne Billson in The Times