1930 1st Edtn/1st Prnt Ltd Edtn 416/1275 THE DISCOVERIE OF WITCHCRAFT By Reginald Scott/Montague Summers Good Esoteric

£350.00

1930 1st Edition 1st Printing,
THE DISCOVERIE OF WITCHCRAFT

By Reginald Scott/Montague Summers
Reginald Scot (c.1538–1599) was a Kentish gentleman and MP whose sceptical Discoverie became the first substantial English treatise on witchcraft and a landmark of rationalism; it also contains the earliest detailed English descriptions of conjuring.

Augustus Montague Summers (10 April 1880 – 10 August 1948) was an English author, clergyman, and teacher. He initially prepared for a career in the Church of England at Oxford and Lichfield, and was ordained as an Anglican deacon in 1908. He then converted to Roman Catholicism and began styling himself as a Catholic priest. He was, however, never affiliated with any Catholic diocese or religious order, and it is doubtful that he was ever actually ordained to the priesthood. He was employed as a teacher of English and Latin while independently pursuing scholarly work on the English drama of the 17th century. The latter earned him election to the Royal Society of Literature in 1916. Noted for his eccentric personality and interests, Summers became a well known figure in London society as a result of the publication of his History of Witchcraft and Demonology in 1926. That work was followed by other studies on witchcraft, vampires, and werewolves, in all of which he professed to believe. Summers also produced a modern English translation, published in 1929, of the 15th-century witch hunter's manual, the Malleus Maleficarum. He has been characterized as "arguably the most seminal twentieth century purveyor of pop culture occultism."

Format: Hardcover, folio (fo 12 × 19 305 × 483),Pages 320
Language: English
Dust Jacket: No Jacket, Dust Jacket Condition: No Jacket

Published By: John Rodker, London

Synopsis: A substantial Introduction by Rev. Montague Summers:
A brisk biographical sketch of Reginald Scot and a survey of the book’s publication history (1584; reissues 1651, 1654; expanded 1665; 19th-century Nicholson reprint).
The cultural and theological context of Elizabethan witch beliefs and prosecutions.
A (famously partisan) critique of Scot’s scepticism. Summers—who believed in the literal reality of witches—argues that Scot went too far in dismissing diabolic agency, positioning the Discoverie as influential but, in his view, theologically unsound.
Notes on the book’s afterlife and influence (on stage magic, on writers like Shakespeare, and on later demonological debates).followed by Scot’s full text with the famous diagrams and woodcut-style figures reproduced.

A faithful, finely produced facsimile of one of the foundational English works on witchcraft and conjuring, originally published 1584.

SKU: BTETM0002657
Approximate Package Dimensions H: 12.5, L: 30, W: 25 (Units: cm), W: 3Kg

Very Good - Limited edition of 1,275, this No. 416. Publisher's quarter morocco, the binding is solid and entirely original; the leather spine shows mild rubbing and light scuffing to the extremities, gilt titles to spine with minimal loss, a few marks to boards, head and tail of the spine & joints a little rubbed, edges uncut, front hinge strained with binding exposed after ffep, printed on Dutch paper, occ. spot, else good. An early 20th century limited edition facsimile of Scot's importrant examination into early modern witches & magic. Folio. xxxvii, [1], 282, [1]pp
Please see photos as part of condition report

1930 1st Edtn/1st Prnt Ltd Edtn 416/1275 THE DISCOVERIE OF WITCHCRAFT By Reginald Scott/Montague Summers Good Esoteric

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