Search Results: MYTHHOLGY AND FOLK TALES from Back Lane Books (Member of IOBA)

The Beast Within: A History of the Werewolf, Douglas, Adam. Published by Chapmans, London, 1992. First Edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 294pp., illustrated. Black boards with silver spine titles. Volume is in unread condition and housed in a fine, unclipped jacket.

An excellent scholarly exploration of the were myth from prehistory onward, a virtual encyclopedia of werewolf lore.

Beowulf: A New Verse Translation, Heaney, Seamus. Published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, NY, 2000. 8vo up to 9½" tall. 213pp. Quarter black cloth over black boards, silver spine titles. Volume is in unread, unmarked condition; unclipped jacket is fine with very light shelf scuffing. Bilingual Edition with text in English and Old English. This is a new translation of the Anglo-Saxon epic chronicling the heroic adventures of Beowulf, the Scandinavian warrior who saves his people from the ravages of the monster Grendel and Grendel's mother. Winner of the Whitbread Award.

Bestiary Being an English Version of the Bodleian Library, Oxford M.S. Bodley 764 with all the Original Miniatures reproduced in Facsimile. Translated by Richard Barber. Published by Folio Society, London, 1992. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall; 202pp. with 135 colour illustrations of the original illuminated miniatures; title-page lettering by Sebatian Carter. Cream pictorial boards with blue cloth spine, blue endpapers, housed in a blue slipcase. In fine, unread condition. A medieval moralizing treatise on beasts from the society manuscript in the Bodleian Library.

Bloodlust: Conversations with Real Vampires, Page, Carol. Published by Harper Collins Publishers, New York, 1991. First Edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall., viii., 192pp. Quarter black over red boards, red metallic titles, red endpapers. Both volume and unclipped jacket are in unread, as new condition.

A diverse group of real-life vampires discusses their favorite pastime of drinking blood and candidly revealing the techniques they employ to acquire fresh victims and explaining why their "blood-lust" is so powerful.

The Book of Vampires, Wright, Dudley. Published by Dorset Press, New York, 1987. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 217pp. Quarter red cloth over black boards, gilt spine titles. Volume is in unread condition; unclipped jacket has light scuffing.

Originally published in 1914, this was the first serious study of vampirism in the English language. Wright examines the body of evidence and discusses vampirism as an observable phenomenon with distinct scientific, sociological, mythic, and literary elements. The result is an excellent introduction to the subject. Dudley Wright (1868-1950) was an English writer, historian, occultist, scholar of Islam and a Mason; at one point the editor of England's most influential Masonic newspaper, The Freemason.

Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable - 18th Edition, Foreword by Philip Pullman, Edited by Camilla Rockwood. Brewer's an Imprint of Chambers Harrap Pubishers Ltd, United Kingdom, 2009. 1460 pgs. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall. Black boards, gilt spine titles, red endpapers. Unclipped dustjacket has the lightest of shelf wear; volume in mint condition without markings, tears or folds; appears unread. "This revised and expanded edition features hundreds of new entries on everything from blogs and designer babies to New York's mysterious sewer-dwelling alligators, as well as a selection of 'heritage entries' from a Victorian edition of Brewer's: see enchanted castles, magic garters and poison detectors. The sheer scope of Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase & Fable, together with its delightful mix of scholarship and eccentricity, makes it a must for every 21st-century bookshelf."A heavy book requiring additional postage.

China and Japan: Myths and Legends, Mackenzie, Donald. Published by Bracken Books, 1986. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 404pp. with black and white illustrations, index. Black boards, gilt spine titles. Light dusting lower outside edge and otherwise volume is in fine, unmarked condition in fine, unclipped dustjacket.

Czech Fairytales, Erben, Karel Jaromir and Nemcova, Bozena. Published by Vitalis, Prague, 2008. Translated by Renata Peskova; Lucie Müllerová (Illustrator). Quarter crimson cloth over pictorial boards; yellow endpapers, crimson reading ribbon. 8 colour plates. 4to - over 9¾" - 12" tall; 116 pages with 8 color plates. In fine, unmarked condition with a bit of rubbing to gilt spine titles.
A collection of nine stories from the oral tradition, collected and written down for posterity by Božena Němcová (1820-1862) and Karel Jaromír Erben (1811-1870).

The Dracula Scrapbook, Haining, Peter. Published by Chancellor Press, London, 1992. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 160pp., illustrated with images of newspaper clippings, comics, movie posters, woodcuts, programs from plays, and photos. Illustrated laminated boards. Includes a detailed listing of Dracula films and a chronology of famous real-life cases of vampirism from around the world. Contents in fine, unread condition; boards have very light shelf wear. Since its publication in 1897, Bram Stoker's novel "Dracula" has been adapted for the cinema, dramatized for the stage and inspired a whole series of books and films on the Dracula theme. This success story is explored here, with fascinating revelations about how Stoker's novel came about, alongside details of the growth of the Dracula screen cult and interviews with the major film stars.

Dreadful Pleasures: An Anatomy of Modern Horror, Twitchell, James B. Published by Oxford University Press, 1985. First Edition. 385pp. with notes, bibliography and index. Quarter red cloth over red boards. Volume is in unread condition; jacket is clipped with rub to head of spine and toning inside flaps and rear panel.

James Twitchell traces our fascination with horror from the cave paintings at Lascaux to the "slasher" movies today.
Twitchell finds that three particular stories have had a special resonance in our culture: the bloodsucker (Dracula), the deformed creature (Frankenstein), and the transformation monster (The Wolfman, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde). Why have these stories persisted to the point of becoming mythic and to the exclusion of others? Insightful, provocative, and entertaining; film buffs and scholars, literary critics and devotees of the Gothic novel will all welcome this study.

Ancient Egyptian Oracle, Norman Plaskett; Carlton Books. Published by Carlton Publishing Group, 2002. Box set containing 72 card deck and book: The Egyptian Oracle Cards of Ra-Maat by Norman Plaskett. Cards and book are in fine, unused condition; box has the lightest of shelf wear to top flaps. "The Ancient Egyptian Oracle allows you to use the wisdom of the ages to penetrate the shadows of the future. The origins of these extraordinary cards are shrouded in mystery. Evidence found in the Egyptian Books of the Dead reveals that the cards are dedicated to Ra, the god of the sun who was reborn every morning, and Maat, the goddess of order, truth and judgement, whom the ancient Egyptians depended on to steer them through the after-world".

Fetichism; A Contribution to Anthropology and the History of Religion, Schultze, Fritz; Translated by J. Fitzgerald. Published by Humboldt Publishing Co, New York, 1885. First English Edition. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 112pp., 46pp publisher's catalogue. Maroon embossed cloth with black titles front and gilt spine titles; decorative endpapers. Light toning to pages and otherwise contents are in fine condition without markings, tears or folds; boards have rubbing to edges with light overall wear.. First published in German 1871 as: Der Fetischismus: Ein Beitrag zur Anthropologie und Religionsgeschichte. Fritz Schultze (1846–1908) was a German philosopher and professor of philosophy and pedagogy at the Royal Polytechnic Institute of Dresden.

Fire Burn: Tales of Witchery, Radford, Ken, Editor. Published by Michael O'Mara Books Ltd, United Kingdom, 1989. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 208 pp. illustrated with period woodcuts and drawings in black and white, bibliography. Black cloth boards with gilt spine titles. Light toning and outer-edge dusting and otherwise volume is in fine, unmarked condition, Unclipped dustjacket has light edge wear. A collection of accounts of witchcraft, drawn from a wide variety of sources from the narratives of the European witchcraft trials, to mid-twentieth century oral history.

Gilgamesh: A New English Version, Stephen Mitchell. Published by Free Press, 2004. First Edition. 290pp. with introduction and glossary. Quarter black cloth over black boards, gilt titles and borders, patterned endpapers. In fine, unread condition.
Gilgamesh dates from as early as 1700 BCE – a thousand years before the Iliad. Lost for almost two millennia, the eleven clay tables on which the epic was inscribed were discovered in 1853 in the ruins of Nineveh, and the text was not deciphered and fully translated until the end of the century. The epic is the story of literature's first hero—the king of Uruk in what is present-day Iraq—and his journey of self-discovery. A brilliant new rendering of the oldest epic in the world by esteemed translator and bestselling author Stephen Mitchell.

Goddesses: Mysteries of the Feminine Divine, Campbell, Joseph. Published by New World Library, 2013. Rose covered boards with gilt titles. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 432pp. with black and white illustrations. Both volume and dustjacket are in fine, unread, unmarked condition.

Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales, James, Grace; illustrations by Warwick Goble. Published by MacMillan and Co., London, 1979. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 231pp, with colour plates. Dark blue cloth boards with gilt spine titles, blue top edge, blue endpapers and reading ribbon. Contents are in fine, unmarked condition. Front board has three small indentations; jacket has rubbing to edges, crease to lower corner and closed tear. Reproduces the original 1923 edition.

The History of Witchcraft and Demonology, Montague Summers. Published by Castle/ Book Sales, 1992. viii + 354pp. Red boards with gilt spine titles. Volume is in unread condition and housed in a fine dustjacket. First published in 1926. Among the subjects covered by Dr. Summers are: The Witch; Heretic and Anarchist; Demons and Familiars; the Sabbat; the Witch in Holy Writ; Diabolic Possession and Modern Spiritism; and the Witch in Dramatic Literature.

King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table; Stories of Camelot and the Quest for the Holy Grail, Dougherty, Martin J. Published by Amber Books Ltd, 2016. 4to up to 12" tall; 224pp. with black and white and color illustrations, index. Glossy illustrated boards, dark blue endpapers. In fine condition.

The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, J. R. R. Tolkien. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, United States, 2009. 377pp. Quarter black cloth over black boards, gilt spine titles. In fine, unread condition and housed in a fine, unclipped jacket.
Tolkien's extensive retelling in English narrative verse of the epic Norse tales of Sigurd the Völsung and The Fall of the Niflungs. It includes an introduction by J.R.R. Tolkien, drawn from one of his own lectures on Norse literature, with commentary and notes on the poems by Christopher Tolkien.

Legends of the World, edited by Richard Cavendish; Eric Fraser, Illustrator. Published by Orbis Publishing, 1982. 8vo up to 9½" tall., 433pp. including index, bibliography and comparative chronologies; black and white plates and in text illustrations by Eric Fraser. Green cloth boards with gilt spine titles and peach endpapers. Contents in fine, unmarked condition with light rubbing to bottom edge of boards; light wear to clipped jacket.