Search Results: Occult from Downtown Brown Books, ABAA

México [Mexico City]: Tip. de la Viuda é Hijos de Murguia, 1878. First Edition. Pamphlet. A fortune-telling system "fixed to the meridian of Mexico" [Arreglado al meridiano de México]. Ca. 71 pages. 5-1/4 by 3-5/16 inches. Corner missing from front cover, not affecting any text, but generally very good.

London: The Fortune Press, 1936. First Edition. Hardcover. Very good/Very good. A collection of previously published short stories by authors like John Polidori, J. S. LeFanu, Charles R. Maturin, and the editor. Blieler (Guide to Supernatural Fiction, no. 1570) didn't think much of the book, but singled out the Maturin story as "very much worth having." About the author, Bleiler wrote, "British bibliographer, literary scholar, believing student of magic and related phenomena... Very learned student of Renaissance witchcraft, magic, superstitions." First edition (first printing, with no date on the title page or copyright page). A very good or better hardcover copy in a very good dust jacket, with a large price clip and a later price sticker on the front flap. Still, uncommon in a dust jacket as attractive as this.

México (Mexico City): Imprenta de Alfonso E. López, 1889. First Edition. Good. A very scarce Mexican spiritualism book, collecting the transcripts of six communications from the spirit world. The medium was the Mexican psychic Francisco Urgel, who worked with Refugio I. Gonzalez's spiritualist circle, La Luz (the light), in Mexico City in 1878 (though not published until eleven years later). The spirits who communicated through Urgel were several saints, including Louis of Granada, and the French political philosopher Montesquieu, who explained the twelve epochs of history. Surprisingly, Montesquieu, dead for more than a century, kept up on political developments and expressed his support of socialism (p. 399) and of spiritualism because it was superior to all other religions. xiii, 412, [2] pages. Very scarce. OCLC locates one copy, in Mexico. For more information, see Everardo G. Carlos González, La República de los Espíritus: Historia del espiritismo en México, 1848-1897 (Ph.D. thesis),… Read More