"To the world when it was half a thousand years younger," Huizinga begins, "the outline of all things seemed more clearly marked than to us." Life seemed to consist in extremes—a fierce religious asceticism and an unrestrained licentiousness, ferocious judicial punishments and great popular waves of pity and mercy, the most horrible crimes and the most extravagant acts of saintliness—and everywhere a sea of tears, for men have never wept so unrestrainedly as in those centuries.First...

More than half a century after its translation into English, Erich Auerbach's Mimesis remains a masterpiece of literary criticism. A brilliant display of erudition, wit, and wisdom, his exploration of how great European writers from Homer to Virginia Woolf depicted reality has taught generations how to read Western literature. This new expanded edition includes a substantial essay in introduction by Edward Said as well as an essay, never before translated into English, in which Auerbach re...

Montague Summers's richly illustrated study approaches witchcraft and demonology not as quaint folklore, but as a vast historical force that shaped religion, politics, and daily life across early modern Europe. Writing within a serious scholarly tradition, he argues that modern materialism has obscured the subject's importance, while renewed interest in spiritism only confirms that the supernatural cannot be dismissed so easily. Though he limits his scope to key themes rather than a comple...

Henry Adams' Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a masterful exploration of medieval France, blending history, art, and philosophy in a deeply personal and poetic study of two of its greatest architectural and spiritual achievements. Originally written as a private meditation for his friends and students, Adams' work offers a profound reflection on the Gothic spirit that shaped the great cathedrals and monastic strongholds of the 12th and 13th centuries.With vivid descriptio...

Paul Hazard’s magisterial, widely influential, and beloved intellectual history offers an unforgettable account of the birth of the modern European mind in all its dynamic, inquiring, and uncertain glory. Beginning his story in the latter half of the seventeenth century, while also looking back to the Renaissance and forward to the future, Hazard traces the process by which new developmentsin the sciences, arts, philosophy, and philology came to undermine the stable foundations of t...

The Vampire: His Kith and Kin is Montague Summers's learned, eccentric survey of vampiric belief across folklore, theology, demonology, travel writing, and literary tradition. First published in 1928, it treats the vampire not merely as a Gothic ornament but as a persistent cultural and spiritual problem, moving from Slavic revenants and classical analogues to medieval superstition and modern occult speculation. Its style is luxuriantly antiquarian: allusive, Latinate, and densely footnote...

The Library of Alexandria is an independent small business publishing house. We specialize in bringing back to live rare, historical and ancient Books. This includes manuscripts such as: classical fiction, philosophy, science, Religion, folklore, mythology, history, literature, politics and sacred texts, in addition to Secret and esoteric subjects, such as: occult, freemasonry, alchemy, hermetic, shamanism and ancient knowledge. Our Books are available in digital format. We have approximat...

Mont Saint Michel and Chartres is a record not of a literal jouney but of a meditative journey across time and space into the medieval imagination. Using the architecture, sculpture, and stained glass of the two locales as a starting point, Adams breathes life into what others might see merely as monuments of a past civilization. With daring and inventive conceits, Adams looks at the ordinary people, places, and events in the context of the social conventions and ...

It was in the year 1119, the twentieth of the Christian dominion in Syria, that nine pious and valiant Knights, the greater part of whom had been the companions of Godfrey de Bouillon, formed themselves into an association, the object of which was to protect and defend Pilgrims on their visits to the holy places. These Knights, of whom the two chief were Hugo de Payens and Godfrey de St. Omer, vowed, in honour of the sweet Mother of God, to unite Monkhood and Knighthood; their pious design...

pubOne.info present you this wonderfully illustrated edition. Occupying nearly four columns, appeared in the New York Tribune of Dec. 30th, 1879, from which the following is extracted.

The first major literary presentation of Nostradamus's Prophecies, newly translated and edited by prizewinning scholarsThe mysterious quatrains of the sixteenth-century French astrologer Nostradamus have long proved captivating for their predictions. Nostradamus has been credited with anticipating the Great Fire of London, the rise of Adolf Hitler, and the September 11 terrorist attacks. Today, as the world grapples with financial meltdowns, global terrori...

In "Historia Amoris," Edgar Saltus delves into the complexities of romantic relationships through a lens of philosophical inquiry and lyrical prose. The book intricately examines the nature of love, desire, and the human condition, intertwining narrative and reflection in an elegant style that exemplifies Saltus's mastery of language. Set against the backdrop of the late 19th century, it captures the existential struggles of individuals seeking connection amidst societal constraints, echoi...