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Libra Esoterica

The secret commonwealth of elves, fauns, and fairies

by Robert Kirk

  • First published:
  • 19th century
  • Language: English
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Description

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"Kirk is a magnificent dish to set before any student of either folk-lore or folk-psychology."—Times Literary Supplement In the late seventeenth century, a Scottish minister went looking for supernatural creatures of "a middle nature betwixt man and angel." Robert Kirk roamed the Highlands, talking to his parishioners and other country folk about their encounters with fairies, wraiths, elves, doppelgangers, and other agents of the spirit world. Magic was a part of everyday life for Kirk and his fellow Highlanders, and this remarkable book offers rare glimpses into their enchanted realm. Left in manuscript form upon the author's death in 1692, this volume was first published in 1815 at the behest of Sir Walter Scott. In 1893, the distinguished folklorist Andrew Lang re-edited the work. Lang's introduction to Kirk's extraordinary blend of science, religion, and superstition is included in this edition. For many years, The Secret Commonwealth was hard to find—available, if at all, only in scholarly editions. Academicians as well as lovers of myths and legends will prize this authoritative but inexpensive edition.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Legendary beings and transformations, Parapsychology and psychical research, and Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

  • Parapsychology and psychical research

    Controlled discovery queries from national-library-of-scotland matched “parapsychology”. Retained metadata contains “Parapsychology” in the subject metadata.

    • “parapsychology”· via National Library of Scotland
    • “Parapsychology”· in subject
  • Telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition

    Controlled discovery queries from national-library-of-scotland and openlibrary matched “clairvoyance” and “Clairvoyance”. Retained metadata contains “Clairvoyance” in the subject metadata.

    • “clairvoyance”· via National Library of Scotland
    • “Clairvoyance”· via Open Library
    • “Clairvoyance”· in subject
  • Legendary beings and transformations

    Controlled discovery queries from national-library-of-scotland matched “fairies”. Retained metadata contains “Fairies” in the title, “Fairies” in the description, “Fairies” in the subject metadata, and 1 additional metadata match(es).

    • “fairies”· via National Library of Scotland
    • “Fairies”· in title
    • “Fairies”· in description
    • “Fairies”· in subject
    • “Fairies”· in edition title

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Links to ISBN 0486466116; other editions may be cheaper. WorldCat shows libraries near you that hold a copy.

Editions

Open Library reports 7 editions; 3 cataloged here.

Dover ed

"This Dover edition, first published in 2008, is an unabridged, slightly altered version of the work published by Eneas Mackay, Stirling, Scotland, in 1933."--T.p. verso; 22 cm; 94 p; Formerly CIP; ill; Includes bibliographical references

2008Dover PublicationsEnglish
  • 9780486466118
  • 0486466116
Catalog record

[Third ed.]

8vo

1933—English—Catalog record

Open Library record

1893David NuttEnglish—Public

Subjects

9 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Cataloged from

Cataloging notes

  • Contributing institution: The Library of Congress
  • Digitization sponsor: The Library of Congress
  • Open Library reports 7 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
  • Scanner: scribe3.capitolhill.archive.org
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL171383W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
Retrieved