# Mechanical Elephant novel?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mechanical-elephant-novel/34155>\
**Category:** Cafe Society\
**Tags:** books-writing-myths\
**Created:** [September 22, 2000, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mechanical-elephant-novel/34155 "2000-09-22T16:32:18Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 7

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**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\
**Post date:** [February 10, 2025, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/mechanical-elephant-novel/34155/7 "2025-02-10T03:48:55Z")

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My previous record was 11 years when I finally found a reference for Wagner (Faust’s assistant, not Faust himself) and the homunculus.

> [@Name this... woodcut](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/name-this-woodcut/59282):
>
> It’s a woodcut/engraving picture of an alchemist creating a homunculus. The one place I saw it before was talking about the Faust legend. However, the caption did not cite a title, an artist’s name, or what book the picture was originally from. (Might not even have necessarily been from any book about Faust.) The only picture credit in the book where I saw it was “Bettmann Archive”. I searched every conceivable variation of the words Faust, Faustus, homunculus, alchemy, Paracelsus, woodcut, clas…

replacement for extinct link:

[![](https://koboldpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Homunculus1-233x300.jpg) ](https://koboldpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/Homunculus1-233x300.jpg)

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