num_pages: 380
description: No books have been more feared than grimoires and no books have been more valued and revered. In A History of Magic Books  Owen Davies illuminates the many fascinating forms these recondite books have taken and exactly what these books held. At their most benign these repositoriesof forbidden knowledge revealed how to make powerful talismans and protective amulets and provided charms and conjurations for healing illness finding love and warding off evil. But other books promised the power to control innocent victims even to call up the devil. Davies traces the history ofthis remarkably resilient and adaptable genre from the ancient Middle East to modern America offering a new perspective on the fundamental developments of western civilization over the past two thousand years. Grimoires shows the influence magic and magical writing has had on the cultures of theworld richly demonstrating the role they have played in the spread of Christianity the growth of literacy and the influence of western traditions from colonial times to the present.
language: English
title: Grimoires: A History of Magic Books
publisher: Oxford University Press