GODS AND DEVILS OF MANKIND: A Thrilling Story, Very Copiously Illustrated, Describing the Thousand and One Imaginations of the Brilliant Men of All Ages Groping in Darkness After God; Their Conceptions of the Terrific Powers and Mysterious Influences of Good and Evil Spirits; the Ceremonies and Meaning of the Myriad Forms of Idolatrous Worship; its Evils, Superstitions, Sacrifices, Incantations, Temples, Shrines, etc. — The Whole Dark Picture Strikingly Contrasted with the Beauty and Purity of Revealed Religion — by Frank S. Dobbins — 1st Edition / 1st Printing 1897
Publisher: M.J. Coghlin, London (1897)
The boards and binding are solid and tight with some fraying and light shelf-wear at the spine ends. The pages are crisp and clean and free of interior markings, save for small repaired corner of the first blank page. 785 pages, and profusely illustrated. This rare 1897 antique book is an illustrated 19th-century examination of the pagan gods, devils, demons and evil spirits worshipped by mankind throughout the ages — “the whole dark picture," as the author puts it. This groundbreaking study — one of the first of its kind — also covers idols, temples, shrines and, sacred places, incantations, sacrifices, customs, legends and myths. It was published in the same decade as Frazer’s "Golden Bough." GODS AND DEVILS OF MANKIND is an important and hard-to-find work, one which will no doubt prove its value again and again to anyone interested in the study of comparative religions, anthropology, or magic and the occult.
