Beginning with a tale from the Arabian Nights, this theme unfolds in legends from Irish paganism, medieval Christianity, the Arthurian cycle, and early Hinduism. In the retelling of these tales, Zimmer discloses the meanings within their seemingly unrelated symbols and suggests the philosophical wholeness of this assortment of myth.

    In this tapestry of poetic and religious scholarship, Graves explores the stories behind the earliest of European deities—the White Goddess of Birth, Love, and Death—who was worshipped under countless titles. He also uncovers the obscure and mysterious power of "pure poetry" and its peculiar and mythic language.

    In chapters on the Gospels, on St. Paul, on Faith and on the Church, Miss Hamilton, endeavors to set forth the basic truth which makes Christ an unforgettable figure. She includes a chapter on Socrates because of her belief that in his life and teaching the Greek philosopher was closer to Christ than anyone else that ever lived. Orthodox Christians, whether Protestant or Catholic, will not follow Hamilton in many of her arguments. But it is not for such that she writes. Rather her appeal is to the wistful, seeking souls for whom Christ has become an ecclesiastical personage or a theological dogma.--Kirkus

    Contents:v • Introduction by Philip Van Doren Sternxv • Arthur Machen by Robert Hillyer7 • The Great God Pan • (1894) • novella by Arthur Machen71 • The White People • (1904) • novelette by Arthur Machen117 • The Inmost Light • (1894) • novelette by Arthur Machen151 • The Shining Pyramid • (1895) • novelette by Arthur Machen179 • The Great Return • (1915) • novelette by Arthur Machen

    By examining the forms of kingship which evolved in the two countries, Frankfort discovered that beneath resemblances fostered by similar cultural growth and geographical location lay differences based partly upon the natural conditions under which each society developed. The river flood which annually renewed life in the Nile Valley gave Egyptians a cheerful confidence in the permanence of established things and faith in life after death. Their Mesopotamian contemporaries, however, viewed anxiously the harsh, hostile workings of nature. Frank's superb work, first published in 1948 and now supplemented with a preface by Samuel Noah Kramer, demonstrates how the Egyptian and Mesopotamian attitudes toward nature related to their concept of kingship. In both countries the people regarded the king as their mediator with the gods, but in Mesopotamia the king was only the foremost citizen, while in Egypt the ruler was a divine descendant of the gods and the earthly representative of the God Horus.