Ever since I started book-selling one piece of advice was persistent. Specialise. And so 5 years later, even though I knew from the start it was good advice, I am specialising.
The Occult Sciences, Gothic Literature, Fantasy Literature, Symbolic Literature of The Renaissance and Bizarre and Controversial Books.
Only about 25% of my limited stock currently falls under this veil so I am actively seeking to buy books on the following subjects:
THE OCCULT SCIENCES
ALCHEMY
ASTROLOGY
CONSPIRACY THEORIES
DEMONOLOGY – black magic, chaos magick, death & dying, grimoires, enochian, magick, monsters, necronomicon, neopagan,were-wolves, vampires, ritual magick, sex magick, spell books, thelema, wicca, witchcraft
ESOTERICA – ariosophy, astral travel, controversial knowledge, divination, drugs, earth mysteries, gnostics, holy grail, indian philosophy, kabbalah, neotantra, qabalah, runes / nordic, sacred geometry, Santeria, subtle energy
HERMETICA – egypt, Golden Dawn, hermetic arts, hermetic magic
MAGIC
MYSTICISM – gurdjieff, rosicrucians, shamanism, tarot, voodoo
MYTHOLOGY – myths and legends, fairy tales, folk-lore, folk tales, fairies, monsters – vampires, god & godesses, runes / nordic
PARANORMAL
SECRET SOCIETIES – Freemasons, Pireure De Sion, knights templar
SPIRITUALISM
THEOSOPHY
WITCHCRAFT
OCCULT AUTHORS
Achad, Frater
Agrippa, Heinrich Cornelius
Ashcroft-Nowicki
Astrum Argentum
Austin Osman Spare
Bailey, Alice.
Bardon, Franz
Baring-Gould, Sabine
Burroughs, W. S.
Castaneda, Carlos
Crowley, Aleister
Denning & Phillips
Duquette, Lon M.
Evola, Julius
Grant, Kenneth
Hyatt, Christopher
Fortune, Dion
Knight, Gareth
Levi & Mathers
Lovecraft, H.P.
Regardie, Israel
Wendell, Leilah
Wilson, Robert A.
BIZARRE BOOKS
strange books
unusual books
fake books
fictitious imprints
C0NTROVERSIAL BOOKS
Joyce, James. Ulysees
the holy blood, the holy grail
Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf.
Sallinger, J. D. the catcher in the rye
Orwell, George. Animal Fram
Huxley, Aldous. A Brave New World
Bacon, Francis. The New Atlantis
Lawrence, D. H. Lady Chatterley’ s Lover
MYTHOLOGICAL/FANTASY Authors
Barrie, J. M. – Peter Pan
Burroughs, Edgar Rice – Tarzan
Carroll, Lewis – Alice In Wonderland
Grimm.
Lewis, C. S. – Narnia
Malory, Thomas- Le Mort Darthur
Nielsen, Kay
Pratchett, Terry
Pullman, Phillip
Rackham, Arthur
Spenser, Edmund- The Fairie Queen
Tolkien, J. R. R. – The Lord Of The Rings.
GOTHIC AUTHORS Gothic Literature,Modern Gothic, Gothic Romance, Southern Gothic, Gothic Horror
Addison, Joseph
Ainsworth, William Harrison
Akenside, Mark
Akerman, J. Y
Alcott, Louisa May : Behind a Mask: or, a Woman’s Power
Allen, Grant
Arnold, H. F
Atherton, Gertrude
Atwood, Margaret (1939 -) – Lady Oracle
Austen, Jane (1775 – 1817) Northanger Abbey
Austin, Mary
Baillie, Joanna (1762 – 1851)
Baldwin, Louisa
Balzac, Honoré de
Bangs, J. K
Bannerman, Anne
Barbauld, Ann Letitia Akikin
Baring, Maurice
Baring-Gould, S
Bates, Arlo
Beale, Charles Willing
Beattie, James
Beck, L. Adams
Beckford, William (1760 – 1844) – Vathek
Beddoes, Thomas Lovell
Beerbohm, Max
Bellamy, Edward
Benson, A. C
Benson, E. F
Bierce, Ambrose
Blackwood, Algernon
Blair, David. – Gothic Short Stories
Blair, Robert
Blake, William
Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna
Boaden, James
Bowen, Elizabeth
Bowen, Marjorie
Braddon, Mary Elizabeth – Lady Audley’s Secret
Bradley, Harriet Lewis
Bramah, Ernest
Brontë, Anne
Brontë, Charlotte (1816 – 1855) – Jane Eyre, Villette
Brontë, Emily (1818 – 1848) – Wuthering Heights
Broughton, Rhoda
Brown, Alice
Brown, Charles Brockden (1771 – 1810) Wieland and Memoirs of Carwin the Biloquist
Brown, E. Levi
Buchan, John
Bulwer-Lytton, Edward George
Bürger, Göttfried August
Burke, Edmund
Burnett, Francis Hodgson
Burns, Robert
Byron, Lord
Cable, George Washington : Old Creole Days
Cain, James M – Double Indemnity
Capes, Bernard
Carter, Angela (1940 – 1992) – Burning Your Boats: The Collected Short Stories, Night At The Circus, The Magic Toyshop
Carter, Elizabeth
Carleton, S
Cather, Willa
Cave, Hugh B
Chambers, Robert W
Chesnutt, Charles W. : The Conjure Woman
Child, Francis J
Cholmondeley, Mary
Clement-Moore, Rosemary. – The Splendor Falls
Coleridge, Samuel Taylor
Collins, Charles
Collins, Wilkie (1824 – 1889) – The Woman in White, The Moonstone
Collins, William
Cooper, James Fenimore : The Spy and any of the five Leatherstocking Tales
Coppard, A. E.
Cowper, William
Cram, Ralph Adams
Crawford, F. Marion
Croker, B. M.
Dacre, Charlotte. – Zofloya
Davis, M. E. M
Defoe, Daniel
de La Mare, Walter
DeQuincey, Thomas – Confessions of an English Opium-Easter
Derleth, August
Dermody, Thomas
Dickens, Charles (1812 – 1870) – The Signalman, A Christmas Carol, The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Ghost Stories
Dinesen, Isak (1885 – 1962)
Doyle, Sir Arthur Conan – The Hound of the Baskervilles, Tales of Unease.
Drake, Alexander
Du Maurier, Daphne (1907 – 1989) – Rebecca
Dunbar, Olivia Howard
Dunbar, Paul Laurence : The Sport of the Gods
Dunsany, Lord
Dumas, Alexandre. – One Thousand and One Ghosts.
Edgeworth, Maria
Edwards, Amelia
Eliot, George
Faulkner, William (1897 – 1962) – Sanctuary
Fouqué, Friedrich de la Motte
Freeman, Mary E. Wilkins
Gaskell, Elizabeth. – Gothic Tales.
Gerard, Alexander
Gilbert, William
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins – The Yellow Wallpaper
Glasgow, Ellen
Godwin, William (1756 – 1836) – Caleb Williams
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von (1749 – 1832)
Gogol, Nikolai
Gray, Thomas
Harwood, John Berwick. – The Ghost Writer.
Hardy, Thomas
Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804 – 1864) The House of Seven Gables, Mosses from an Old Manse and other stories, Young Goodman Brown and Other Short Stories, Rappaccini’s Daughter.
Hearn, Lafcadio
Henry, O.
Hervey, James
Hichens, Robert Smythe
Hill, Susan. – The Woman in Black: A Ghost Story
Hjortsberg, William – Falling Angel
Hodgson, William Hope
Hoffmann, E. T. A. (1776 – 1822)
Hogg, James (1770 – 1835) – The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner
Holman, Sheri. – The Dress Lodger
Holt, Victoria. – Mistress of Mellyn
Homer
Hood, Thomas
Hood, Tom
Housman, Clemence
Hunt, Leigh
Hunt, William
Hugo, Victor – The Hunchback of Notre-Dame
Ingoldsby, Thomas
Irving, Washington (1783 – 1859)
Jackson, Shirley – The Haunting of Hill House, We Have Always Lived In The Castle, The Sundial, Hangsaman, The Bird’s Nest.
Jacobs, W. W. – The Monkey’s Paw
James, G. P. R.
James, Henry (1843 – 1916) – The Turn of The Screw.
James, M. R. – Collected Ghost Stories
Jephson, Robert
Jerome, Jerome K.
Jewett, Sarah Orne : The Country of Pointed Firs
Keats, John
Lindqvist – John Ajvide – Let the Right One In
Lippard, George : The Quaker City; or The Monks of Monk Hall
King, Stephen (1947 -) – Pet Sematary
Kipling, Rudyard
Konevich, M.J.- The Rousseau House.
Kostova, Elizabeth. – The Historian
Kyd, Thomas
Lamb, Caroline. – Glenarvon
Landon, Perceval
Lathom, Francis
Lee, HARPER. – To Kill A Mocking Bird.
Lee, Sophia
Lee, Vernon
Le Fanu, Joseph Sheridan (1814 – 1873) – Carmilla, Uncle Silas, In a Glass Darkly
Leroux, Gaston – The Phantom of the Opera
Level, Maurice
Lewis, Henry Clay : Odd Leaves from the Life of a Louisiana Swamp Doctor
Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775 – 1818) – The Monk
Lippard, George
Lofts, Norah. – The Haunting of Gad’s Hall, Gad’s Hall
London, Jack
Loring, F. G.
Lovecraft, H. P. – Necronomicon: The Best Weird Tales of H.P. Love…, The Call of Cthulhu and Other Weird Stories
Ludlow, Fitz Hugh
MacDonald, George
Machen, Arthur
Macpherson, James
Marlowe, Christopher
Marsh, Richard
Martin, Valerie Mary Reilly
Mason, William
Matheson, Richard. – Hell House.
Matthews, Brander
Maturin, Charles Robert (1780 – 1824) – Melmoth the Wanderer
Maupassant, Guy de – Le Horla and Others
McGrath, Patrick. – Asylum
Melville, Herman (1819 – 1891) Moby Dick
Merritt, Abraham
Meyer, Stephanie – Twilight, Eclipse
Meyrink, Gustav
Middleton, Richard
Miéville, China – Perdido Street Station
Millet, F. D.
Millington, Thomas Street
Moir, David Macbeth
Molesworth, Mary Louisa
Monette, Sarah. – The Bone Key
Morley, Christopher
Morrison, Arthur
Morrison, Toni (1931 -) – Beloved
Morton, Kate The House at Riverton, The Forgotten Garden.
Mudford, William
Mulholland, Rosa
Mulock, Dinah
Nesbit, E.
Norris, Frank : Vandover and the Brute
Oates, Joyce Carol (1938 -) – Mysteries of Winterthurn
O’Brien, Fitz-James.
Oliphant, Margaret
Onions, Oliver
Pain, Barry
Pangborn, Georgia Wood
Parnell, Thomas
Parsons, Eliza
Peacock, Thomas Love – Nightmare Abbey
Peake, Mervyn – The Gormenghast trilogy
Peake, Richard Brinsley
Peattie, Elia W
Phelps, Elizabeth Stuart
Planché, J. R
Poe, Edgar Allan (1809 – 1849) – The Black Cat, The Raven
Polidori, John – Vampyre
Prest, Thomas Peckett
Price, Sir Uvedale
Pyle, Howard
Quiller-Couch, Arthur
Quinn, Seabury
Radcliffe, Ann (1764 – 1823) – The Mysteries of Udolpho, The Italian.
Reeve, Clara
Rhys, Jean – Wide Sargasso Sea
Rice, Anne (1941 -) – Interview With A Vampire, Mayfair Witches.
Richardson, Samuel. – Clarissa, or the History of a Young Lady.
Riddell, Charlotte
Robinson, Mary
Roche, Regina Maria
Rogers, Samuel
Rossetti, Christina
Saki (H. H. Munro)
Sapper (H. C. McNeile)
Schiller, Friedrich von
Scott, Sir Walter (1771 – 1832) – The Bride of Lammermoor.
Seton, Anya. – Dragonwyck
Setterfield, Diane. The Thirteenth Tale
Shakespeare, William
Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft (1797 – 1851) – Frankenstein
Shelley, Percy Bysshe
Shenstone, William
Shiel, M. P
Sinclair, May
Sleath, Eleanor
Smith, Charlotte
Smith, Clark Ashton
Smith, Horace
Smith, Lady Eleanor
Smollett, Tobias
Southey, Robert
Stagg, John
Stenbock, Count Eric
Stevenson, Robert Louis (1850 – 1894) – Dr. Jekyl & Mr. Hyde
Stockton, Frank
Stoker, Bram (1847 – 1912) – Dracula
Stowe, Harriet Beecher
Sullivan, T. R
Süskind, Patrick. Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
Swinburne, Charles Algernon
Thelwall, John
Thomson, James
Tieck, Johann Ludwig
Twain, Mark – The Mysterious Stranger
Vande Velde, Vivian. – Companions of the Night
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, August…. Virgil
Wakefield, H. Russell
Walpole, Horace (1717 – 1797) – The Castle of Ortranto
Warren, Samuel
Warton, Joseph
Warton, Thomas
Waters, Sarah. – The Little Stranger, Affinity
Watson, H. B. Marriott
Watson-Taylor, George
Wells, H. G – The Island of Dr. Moreau
Wharton, Edith (1862 – 1937) : Ethan Frome, The Ghost Stories of Edith Wharton.
Wheatley, Dennis
White, Henry Kirke
Wilde, Oscar (1854 – 1900) – The Picture of Dorian Gray
Wilkinson, Sarah
Wilson, John
Wollstonecraft, Mary
Wood, Ellen Price
Wordsworth, William
Wynne, Madeline Yale
Young, Edward
Zafon, Carlos Ruis – The Shadow of The Wind, The Angel’s Game
Zola, Émile. – Germinal
Symbolic Literature of The Renaissance
Addison, Joseph Spectator LXII 1711
Alciato, Andreas Emblematum Liber Augsburg: Steiner, 1531
Anon The Alphabet of Tales early 14th century
Anon Physiologus 2nd century AD
Aneau, Barthélemy and Gueroult, Guillaume Decades de la description …des animaulx Lyons: Arnoullet, 1549
Allen, Don Cameron Mysteriously Meant Baltimore: Johns Hopkins, 1970
Aquinas Summa Theologica mid 13th century
St. Augustine. Enarrationes in Psalmos ed Dekkers E and Fraipont, J.
Bracciolini, Poggio Facetiae (Jokes)
De Bustamante, JMB Instrumentum emblematicum New York: Olms-Weidmann, 1992
Caldwell, Dorigen Studies in Sixteenth Century Italian Imprese in Emb. 11
Camerarius, Joachim Symbolorum & Emblematum Centuria, 1590
Cartari, Vincenzo Le Imagini degli Dei degli Antichi Venice: Marcolini, 1556
Castiglione, Baldassare Il Libro del Cortegiano Venice: Aldus, 1528
———————————-(The Book of the Courtier trans. George Bull, London: Penguin, 1976)
Colonna, Francesco Hypnerotomachia Poliphili Venice: Aldus, 1499
Contile, Luca Ragionamento Pavia: Bartoli, 1574
Cook The Figure of Enigma: Rhetoric, History, Poetry Rhetorica 2001 Vol 18 No. 4 349-378
Curtius, Ernst Robert European Literature and the Latin Middle Ages Princeton: Princeton UP, 1990
Daly, Peter M. Emblem Theory: recent German contributions to the characterization of the emblem genre Nendeln: KTO Press, 1979
———————–Literature in the Light of the Emblem Toronto: UP of Toronto, 1998
Dante, Commedia c1314
Dante Epistula XIII to Cangrande della Scala
Delepierre Delepierrem Octave Rebuses London: 1870
Dickson, Donald Tessera of Antillia Boston: Brill, 1998
Eisler, R. Traditio vi. 1948 187
Erasmus, Desiderius Adagia Paris: Marcellus, 1500
—————-Apophthegmata Basle: 1531
—————-Dialogus Ciceronianus 1528
see http://www.crrs.ca/library/vaults/conversations/cicero/l_ciceronianus.php4
Estienne, Henri II Anthologiae Gnomicae Frankfurt: Corvinum, 1579
—————————Epigrammata Graecae Stephanus, 1566 and 1570
Estienne, Henri Sieur des Fosses L’art de faire les Devises Paris: Jean Pâlé, 1645
————————(The art of making devises trans. Thomas Blount, London: WE & JG 1646)
Farra, Alessandro Settanario dell’humana riduttione Venice: La Minima Compagnia, 1594
Da Filippi, Michele The Literary Riddle in Italy in the 16th Century University of California Press 1948
Fletcher, Angus Allegory the Theory of a Symbolic Mode Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975
Giovio, Pierio Dell’Impresi Militari e Amorose Rome: Barré, 1555
Gracian, Balthasar (Lorenzo) Agudeza y Arte de Ingenio Madrid: Sanchez, 1649
—————————————–(The Minds Wit and Art trans. L. H. Chambers, Michigan, 1962)
Higgins, Dick Pattern Poetry: Guide to an Unknown Literature Albany: SUNY Press, 1987
Hoskins, John Directions for Speech and Style 1599 ed. Hoyt H. Hudson, Princeton: Princeton UP, 1935
Huizinga, Johan The Autumn of the Middle Ages Chicago: Chicago UP, 1996
Isidore of Seville Etymologies early 7th century
Iversen, Erik The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs in European Tradition 1961
Jayne, Sears Plato in Renaissance England Kluwer: Dordrecht, 1995
Kruger, Steven F. Dreaming in the Middle Ages Cambridge: 1992
Lando, Ortensio Paradossi 1542
Laurens, F.V. La Raison des Figures Symboliques à la Renaissance et à l’Âge Classique Geneva: Droz, 2000
Laurens, P and Vuilleumier, F De l’archéologie à l’emblème: la genèse du Liber Alciati in Revue de l’Art 1993
Marbode of Rennes Liber lapidum 1061 – 1081
Marchant Chorea ab eximio Macabro Paris: Marchant, 1486
Lewalski Notes towards a study of the Renaissance letter in Renaissance genres Harvard 1986
Macrobius Saturnalia (Percival Vaughan Davies trans. Columbia, 1969)
Masen, Jakob Speculum Imaginum 1650
Matthiolus Commentarii in Sex Libros Pedacii Dioscorides Venice: Valgrisi, 1554
Menestrier, C-F La Philosphie des images: images Enigmatiques Lyons: Baritel, 1694
Molnár, Albert Lusus poetici 1614
Moss, A. Ovid in Renaissance France London: 1982
le Moyne, Pierre De l’Art des Devises Cramoisy: Paris, 1666
Nicoll, Allardyce The Stuart Masques and the Renaissance Stage London: Harrap, 1937
Onians, R.B. The Origins of European Thought Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1951
Pisan, Christine The Epistre Othea
Plotinus Enneads 3rd century AD
Puttenham, George The Arte of English Poesie London: Field, 1589
Rabelais, Francois Gargantua and Pantagruel Lyons: 1532
Ripa, Cesare Iconologia Rome: Gigiliotti, 1593
Rouse, Mary and Richard Preachers, florilegia and sermons: studies on the Manipulus florum of Thomas of Ireland Toronto: 1979
Ruscelli, Girolamo L’imprese illustri Venice: Senesi, 1584
Russell, David Emblems and Hieroglyphs …in Emb. 1, 2, 1986
Ruiz , Juan Libro de Buen Amor 14th C
Speed, Peter Medieval Cautionary Tales Italica, 2004
Spenser, Edmund The Shepheardes Calendar London: Singleton, 1579
Tesauro, Emanuele Il Cannochiale Aristotelico Venice: Curti, 1678
Thorndike, Lynn History of Magic and Experimental Science New York: Macmillan, 1923
Toscan, Jean Le Carnaval du Langage Lille: Atelier Reproduction des Thèses Université de Lille, 1981
Stobaeus – Florilegium by ugh subsequently four of the lost chapters were found in an unrelated text.
Vasari, Giorgio Le vite de piu excellenti pittori Florence: Torrentino, 1550-1567
Wickham, Glynne Early English Stages New York: Columbia UP, 1980/1
Watanabe-O’Kelly, Helen and Simon, Anne Festivals and ceremonies: a bibliography of works relating to court, civic and religious festivals in Europe 1500-1800 London: Mansell, 2000
Quotes and enquiries to:
I would very much like to hear from anyone on what can be considered a controversial or bizarre book.
Currently I am reading The Historian and wifey has just finished The Catcher in the Rye. She, like me found it strangely compelling.





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