From our colonial past to the present, the monster in all its various forms has been a staple of American culture. A masterful survey of our grim and often disturbing past, Monsters in America uniquely brings together history and culture studies to expose the dark obsessions that have helped create our national identity.Monsters are not just fears of the individual psyche, historian Scott Poole explains, but are concoctions of the public imagination, reactions to cultural influences, social change, and historical events. Conflicting anxieties about race, class, gender, sexuality, religious beliefs, science, and politics manifest as haunting beings among the populace. From Victorian-era mad scientists to modern-day serial killers, new monsters appear as American society evolves, paralleling fluctuating challenges to the cultural status quo. Consulting newspaper accounts, archival materials, personal papers, comic books, films, and oral histories, Poole adroitly illustrates how the creation of the monstrous "other" not only reflects society's fears but shapes actual historical behavior and becomes a cultural reminder of inhuman acts.

    This text describes the practice, theory, and underlying rationale of black magic in all its branches - the summoning and control of evil spirits, necromancy, psychic attack, devil worship, witchcraft, evil charms and spells - as well as other branches of occult theory.

    Eliza Caine arrives in Norfolk to take up her position as governess at Gaudlin Hall on a dark and chilling night. As she makes her way across the station platform, a pair of invisible hands push her from behind into the path of an approaching train. She is only saved by the vigilance of a passing doctor.When she finally arrives, shaken, at the hall she is greeted by the two children in her care, Isabella and Eustace. There are no parents, no adults at all, and no one to represent her mysterious employer. The children offer no explanation. Later that night in her room, a second terrifying experience further reinforces the sense that something is very wrong.From the moment she rises the following morning, her every step seems dogged by a malign presence which lives within Gaudlin’s walls. Eliza realises that if she and the children are to survive its violent attentions, she must first uncover the hall’s long-buried secrets and confront the demons of its past…

    . . with the walking dead. This fast-paced thriller reimagines the historical events of the fateful Titanic voyage through the lens of zombie mayhem. Captain Edward Smith and his inner circle desperately try to contain a weaponized zombie virus smuggled on board with the 2,200 passengers sailing to New York. Faced with an exploding population of lumbering, flesh-hungry undead, Smith's team is forced into bloody hand-to-hand combat down the narrow halls of the huge steamer. In its few short days at sea, the majestic Titanic turns into a Victorian bloodbath, steaming at top speed toward a cold, blue iceberg. A creepy, tense page-turner, Deck Z will thrill zombie fans and Titanic buffs alike.

    A city of gas lamps, cobblestone streets, and horse-drawn carriages—and home to the controversial surgeon Dr. Spencer Black. The son of a grave robber, young Dr. Black studies at Philadelphia’s esteemed Academy of Medicine, where he develops an unconventional hypothesis: What if the world’s most celebrated mythological beasts—mermaids, minotaurs, and satyrs—were in fact the evolutionary ancestors of humankind?  The Resurrectionist offers two extraordinary books in one. The first is a fictional biography of Dr. Spencer Black, from a childhood spent exhuming corpses through his medical training, his travels with carnivals, and the mysterious disappearance at the end of his life. The second book is Black’s magnum opus: The Codex Extinct Animalia, a Gray’s Anatomy for mythological beasts—dragons, centaurs, Pegasus, Cerberus—all rendered in meticulously detailed anatomical illustrations. You need only look at these images to realize they are the work of a madman. The Resurrectionist tells his story.

    . . How to spot and identify demons and other subversive spirits . . . And what to do next.Demons, fairies, and fallen angels are everywhere. They lurk at crossroads, crouch behind doors, hide in trees, slip into beds, wait in caves, hover at weddings and childbirths, disguise themselves as friends, relatives-even disguise themselves as you. They are powerful; they are protean; they are enchanting. And, to the uninformed, they are often invisible. This illustrated guide-the first of its kind-reveals the remarkable permutations of the demon and fairy species worldwide. Packed with lore about each demon, detailing its origins, the culture surrounding it, and its reputed antics and exploits, A Field Guide to Demons, Fairies, Fallen Angels, and Other Subversive Spirits is a fascinating exploration of global mythologies. Perfect for the armchair traveler and the intrepid, seasoned demon-spotter alike, this complete guide to subversive spirits offers a behind-the-scenes look at the devilish mishaps, impish irritations, and demonic devastations that punctuate our lives.

    There was no apparent motive for the crime, and there were almost no clues. As Truman Capote reconstructs the murder and the investigation that led to the capture, trial, and execution of the killers, he generates both mesmerizing suspense and astonishing empathy. At the center of his study are the amoral young killers Perry Smith and Dick Hickcock, who, vividly drawn by Capote, are shown to be reprehensible yet entirely and frighteningly human. In Cold Blood is a seminal work of modern prose, a remarkable synthesis of journalistic skill and powerfully evocative narrative.

    He first made his presence known in October 1966, and since then he has continued, at irregular and infrequent intervals, to clump down the hall, slam doors, rock in a chair, frighten the family cat (now deceased, through no fault of Jeffrey), move heavy pieces of furniture, cause electronic equipment to malfunction, and hide objects. He frequently accompanies Mrs. Windham on her travels, and tales of Jeffrey's antics are widely recounted.

    She was sad and translucent, present and absent at once. Strange things began to happen in the Santa Fe hotel where she was seen. Gas fireplaces turned off and on without anyone touching a switch. Vases of flowers appeared in new locations. Glasses flew off shelves. And in one second-floor suite with a canopy bed and arched windows looking out to the mountains, guests reported alarming events: blankets ripped off while they slept, the room temperature plummeting, disembodied breathing, dancing balls of light.La Posada--"place of rest"--had been a grand Santa Fe home before it was converted to a hotel. The room with the canopy bed had belonged to Julia Schuster Staab, the wife of the home's original owner. She died in 1896, nearly a century before the hauntings were first reported. In American Ghost, Hannah Nordhaus traces the life, death, and unsettled afterlife of her great-great-grandmother Julia, from her childhood in Germany to her years in the American West with her Jewish merchant husband.American Ghost is a story of pioneer women and immigrants, ghost hunters and psychics, frontier fortitude and mental illness, imagination and lore. As she traces the strands of Julia's life, Nordhaus uncovers a larger tale of how a true-life story becomes a ghost story--and how difficult it is to separate history and myth.

    

    But a dark secret colors her life, for Delia’s most loyal companions are ghosts, as she has been gifted (or some would say cursed) with an ability to peer across to the other side.Since the great quake rocked her city in 1906, Delia has been haunted by an avalanche of the dead clamoring for her help. Delia flees to the other side of the continent, hoping to gain some peace. After several years in New York, Delia believes she is free…until one determined specter appears and she realizes that she must return to the City by the Bay in order to put this tortured soul to rest.It will not be easy, as the ghost is only one of the many victims of a serial killer who was never caught. A killer who after thirty years is killing again. And who is now aware of Delia’s existence.

    Despite having just moved into a beautiful new house, the Williams family gave in to an odd, overwhelming desire to purchase and move into a Victorian home they had come upon by chance. They were curious, of course, as to why the house had, in the past, had such a high vacancy rate - no one ever seemed to live in it for a long period of time. But that curiosity didn't last long, because shortly after moving in, strange things began to happen. It became abundantly clear that the home's past owners had all had a reason for leaving: fear. The Williams' new home was haunted. At first, the family tried telling themselves there were logical explanations for the strange things they all were witnessing. But before long they came to accept the fact that they were sharing their home with ghosts. Haunted is the Williams family's story from the point of view of the mother, Dorah. Through her chilling reminiscences, we witness the all-too-real goings-on in the house. And we join the family as they seek a way to bring an end to the paranormal events that were occurring with ever more frequency and intensity, and learn why the events began in the first place.

    Tell My Horse is an invaluable resource and fascinating guide. Based on Zora Neale Hurston’s personal experience in Haiti and Jamaica, where she participated as an initiate rather than just an observer of voodoo practices during her visits in the 1930s, this travelogue into a dark world paints a vividly authentic picture of ceremonies and customs and superstitions of great cultural interest.

    Americans roam the streets in gauze masks to ward off the deadly Spanish influenza, and the government ships young men to the front lines of a brutal war, creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion. Sixteen-year-old Mary Shelley Black watches as desperate mourners flock to séances and spirit photographers for comfort, but she herself has never believed in ghosts. During her bleakest moment, however, she’s forced to rethink her entire way of looking at life and death, for her first love—a boy who died in battle—returns in spirit form. But what does he want from her?Featuring haunting archival early-twentieth-century photographs, this is a tense, romantic story set in a past that is eerily like our own time.

    In the tradition of unsolved historical mysteries like David Grann's Killers of the Flower Moon and Douglas Preston's The Lost City of the Monkey God, Brian Muraresku’s 10-year investigation takes the reader through Greece, Germany, Spain, France and Italy, offering unprecedented access to the hidden archives of the Louvre and the Vatican along the way.In The Immortality Key, Muraresku explores a little-known connection between the best-kept secret in Ancient Greece and Christianity. This is the real story of the most famous human being who ever lived (Jesus) and the biggest religion the world has ever known. Today, 2.4 billion people are Christian. That's one third of the planet. But do any of them really know how it all started?Before Jerusalem, before Rome, before Mecca—there was Eleusis: the spiritual capital of the ancient world. It promised immortality to Plato and the rest of Athens's greatest minds with a very simple formula: drink this potion, see God. Shrouded in secrecy for millennia, the Ancient Greek sacrament was buried when the newly Christianized Roman Empire obliterated Eleusis in the fourth century AD.Renegade scholars in the 1970s claimed the Greek potion was psychedelic, just like the original Christian Eucharist that replaced it. In recent years, vindication for the disgraced theory has been quietly mounting in the laboratory. The rapidly growing field of archaeological chemistry has proven the ancient use of visionary drugs. And with a single dose of psilocybin, the psycho-pharmacologists at Johns Hopkins and NYU are now turning self-proclaimed atheists into instant believers. No one has ever found hard, scientific evidence of drugs connected to Eleusis, let alone early Christianity. Until now.Armed with key documents never before translated into English, convincing analysis, and a captivating spirit of quest, Muraresku mines science, classical literature, biblical scholarship and art to deliver the hidden key to eternal life, bringing us to what clinical psychologist William Richards calls "the edge of an awesomely vast frontier."Featuring a Foreword by Graham Hancock, the New York Times bestselling author of America Before: The Key to Earth's Lost Civilization.