1893 Secret Commonwealth of Elves Fauns & Fairies : Robert Kirk / Andrew Lang

The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies
A Study in Folk-Lore & Psychical Research

By Robert Kirk : With a Foreword by Andrew Lang

London: David Nutt, 1893. First thus, limited to 550 copies. Bibliotheque de Carabas Vol. XII. Paper wraps, lxv-92-2 pages.

CONDITION
A very good copy. The covers are good with some light signs of age. Spine a little darkened with age. All contents present and pages in good clean condition throughout. The frontispiece is in good condition and the original tissue guard is still present and in good condition.

ABOUT THIS BOOK
Folklorist Stewart Sanderson and mythologist Marina Warner call Kirk's collection of supernatural tales one of the most important and significant works on the subject of fairies and second sight. In the late 1680s, Kirk traveled to London to help publish one of the first translations of the Bible into Scottish Gaelic. Gentleman scientist Robert Boyle financed the publication of the Gaelic Bible and pursued inquiries into Kirk's reports of second sight. Kirk died before he was able to publish The Secret Commonwealth. Legends arose after Kirk's death saying he had been taken away to fairyland for revealing the secrets of the Good People. Scottish author Walter Scott first published Kirk's work on fairies more than a century later in 1815. Andrew Lang later gave it the popular title, The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (1893). Famous author Philip Pullman gave to the second book of his trilogy The Book of Dust the same title "The Secret Commonwealth" because he said that Kirk's book is one of his favorite books.

The author: Robert Kirk (9 December 1644 – 14 May 1692) was a minister, Gaelic scholar, and folklorist, best known for The Secret Commonwealth, a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts, and second sight, a type of extrasensory perception described as a phenomenon by the people of the Scottish Highlands.

(Loc: Glass cabinet 2)