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The History of Witchcraft and Demonology by Montague Summers, published in 1926 by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & Co., Ltd. First Edition, First Impression. Summers’ first major work devoted to witchcraft and the occult, and one of the most extraordinary twentieth-century studies of European demonology, written by a scholar who approached the historical reality of witchcraft, demonic agency, and possession with a conviction almost unique among writers of his generation. Summers ranges through the Witch as heretic and anarchist, the worship of the Witch, demons and familiar spirits, the Sabbat, witchcraft in Holy Writ, diabolic possession and modern Spiritism, and the Witch in dramatic literature, drawing extensively upon demonological texts, witch-trial records, theology, folklore, and early literature. Particularly compelling are his accounts of the Sabbat and its alleged rites, pacts and commerce with demons, familiars and supernatural manifestations, possession and exorcism, and his provocative comparison of traditional demonology with the séances and spirit phenomena of modern Spiritualism. Illustrated with eight plates and accompanied by an extensive bibliography. A foundational and increasingly collectible work by one of the twentieth century’s most eccentric and influential scholars of witchcraft, vampirism, demonology, and the supernatural. Hardcover in the publisher’s original cloth with gilt design to front board and gilt lettering, showing light shelfwear only. A very attractive copy.
