WITCHCRAFT AND BLACK MAGIC

First edition. Publisher's original brown cloth with gilt titles to the spine, in dustwrapper. With 24 black and white or green tinted illustrations on 16 pages. A near fine copy, the binding square and firm, the cloth and gilt bright and fresh. The contents, with some toning to the paperstock and spotting to the prelims, are otherwise clean throughout and without inscriptions or stamps. Complete with the lightly rubbed and creased dustwrapper that is without loss or tears and just a little dusty at the fold edges. An exceptional example. Scarce in the dustwrapper.

A broad ranging study of witchcraft and black magic by the distinguished English historian, essayist, critic, and biographer, Montague Summers, regarded one of the foremost authorities on supernatural lore. A controversial and enigmatic figure in his own lifetime, Summers professed an unwavering belief in the supernatural forces he described. The seven chapters comprise 'What is Witchcraft?'; 'The Familiar, in Human Shape and Animal'; 'Witchcraft at Cambridge and Oxford'; 'The Origins of Witchcraft'; 'The Library of the Witches'; 'The Magus (1801) of Francis Barrett'; 'Sympathetic Magic'.