Frances Rolleston
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Mazzaroth - The work of her whole life

Apart from times of economic crises, people in this country tend to retire from work in order to pass their remaining years in leisure. Not so for Frances Rolleston. In her last years she worked all the harder to complete what she considered the major project of her life. She pitted herself against the shortness of time, sickness, diminishing energy, financial constraints, social projects that took time and finances, as well as the delays and difficulties attending publication. “Pray for me that I may finish the work of my whole life,” she wrote to a friend in 1861.

That work of her whole life was Mazzaroth: The Constellations, Parts I-IV, Including Mizraim: Astronomy of Egypt. Her theory and discoveries that the signs and constellations were designed to represent Messiah according to the prophecy in Genesis 3:15, that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent. The outline was constructed in her youth, but a 20 to 30 year hiatus preceded the writing, which was revised, corrected, and arranged late in life.

Mazzaroth was published in bits and parts during her lifetime, and as a whole a year after her death. But was it finished? Would she ever have finished? In the last letter she ever wrote, she enthused over new discoveries from her Egyptian planisphere, and stated that there was much yet to be found. Thus Frances fulfilled the wish she had written in her common-place book at about age 24: “Heaven defend me from an old age of novels.”

Mazzaroth can still be purchased in hard cover, soft cover, and Kindle editions


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  • Home
  • About
  • Blog: Today Back Then
  • People
  • Places
  • Activities & Accomplishments
    • Writings >
      • Mazzaroth
    • Poetry
    • Painting