Lives of the Necromancers

Undertaken as a study of human credulity, "Lives of the Necromancers" is a comprehensive history of the invisible world as it has been imagined by the disparate peoples of the world since ancient times. Herein are to be found engaging accounts of sylphs and gnomes, imps and fairies, and the people who believed in them; of the oracle of Delphi and the courtly magus John Dee, the devils of Loudon and the witches of New England, and the powers that were ascribed to them. Published in 1834, "Lives of the Necromancers" was the last major work of British political philosopher and novelist William Godwin, husband of the pioneering feminist writer Mary Wollstonecraft and father of "Frankenstein" author Mary Shelley. A formidable literary figure in his own right, Godwin's prose is strikingly vivid and engaging, affording the modern reader with a thorough yet compelling history of humankind's belief in the supernatural.