“Detestable and Wicked Arts: New England and Witchcraft in the Early Modern Atlantic World” by Paul B. Moyer

"In Detestable and Wicked Arts, Paul B. Moyer places early New England's battle against black magic in a transatlantic perspective. Moyer provides an accessible and comprehensive examination of witch prosecutions in the Puritan colonies that discusses how their English inhabitants understood the crime of witchcraft, why some people ran a greater risk of being accused of occult misdeeds, and how gender intersected with witch-hunting. Focusing on witchcraft cases in New England between roughly 1640 and 1670, Detestable and Wicked Arts highlights ties between witch-hunting in the New and Old Worlds. Informed by studies on witchcraft in early modern Europe, Moyer presents a useful synthesis of scholarship on occult crime in New England and makes new...>>

“Stellas Daemonum: The Orders of the Daemons” by David Crowhurst

"An original, beautifully produced work that explores the “star demons” and their correspondences in magic and astrology as revealed in the medieval grimoires and classical esoteric texts. Stellas Daemonum offers an in-depth analysis of the spirits that appear in several late medieval and early modern grimoires. The book unravels these texts’ mythical, etymological, magical, and religious dimensions and, most importantly, draws out their astrological correspondences. The author shows how the spirit entities featured in these goetic grimoires can be best understood by studying the celestial nature apparent in the ancient concept of the daimon and through an extensive study of ninety-three of the spirits featured in the medieval and Renaissance texts. The book also...>>

“Ghoul Britannia: Notes from a Haunted Isle” by Andrew Martin

"Everyone knows someone who has seen a ghost — Who among us, lying in bed at night, listening to the noises of the house — that spooky creak in the stairs, the clock ticking away emptily in the hall — has not experienced a momentary chill, that first tremor of fear? In Ghoul Britannia, Andrew Martin takes a journey through the darkest corners of our sub-conscious. He visits haunted homes, talks to sensitives and believers, listens to tales and asks what meaning lies buried deep within the most famous ghost stories."...>>

“Ghosts” by Edith Wharton

"No history of the American uncanny tale would be complete without mention of Edith Wharton, yet many of Wharton’s most dedicated admirers are unaware that she was a master of the form. In fact, one of Wharton’s final literary acts was assembling Ghosts, a personal selection of her most chilling stories, written between 1902 and 1937. In The Lady’s Maid’s Bell, the earliest tale included here, a servant’s dedication to her mistress continues from beyond the grave, and in All Souls” the last story Wharton wrote, an elderly woman treads the permeable line between life and the hereafter. In all her writing, Wharton’s great gift was to mercilessly illuminate the motives of men and women, and...>>

“Haunted: On Ghosts, Witches, Vampires, Zombies, and Other Monsters of the Natural and Supernatural Worlds” by Leo Braudy

"Leo Braudy, a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award, has won accolades for revealing the complex and constantly shifting history behind seemingly unchanging ideas of fame, war, and masculinity. Continuing his interest in the history of emotion, this book explores how fear has been shaped into images of monsters and monstrosity. From the Protestant Reformation to contemporary horror films and fiction, he explores four major types: the monster from nature (King Kong), the created monster (Frankenstein), the monster from within (Mr. Hyde), and the monster from the past (Dracula). Drawing upon deep historical and literary research, Braudy discusses the lasting presence of fearful imaginings in an...>>