The Petit Albert: Cloth, Leather, and Vellum Bound editions from Ouroboros Press: Pre-order Today!

RESERVE A COPY: LIMITED EDITIONS AVAILABLE

I am extremely excited to announce that at long last, after centuries of waiting, the world will soon be able to enjoy a proper, physical, non-paperback edition of one of the greatest of all grimoires ever penned by mankind; the infamous, notorious Petit Albert; the Little Albert of Hand of Glory fame, now to be released by Ouroboros Press.

A thousand cloth-bound copies of this work are being printed along with 475 leather bound and 25 vellum-bound editions; this fully illustrated grimoire is somewhere just shy of the Grimorium Verum in terms of its diabolical nature, and contains a large number of folkish rites and practices which drew from cultures beyond the borders of France and were essentially cosmopolitan and eclectic. The content ranges specifically from obtaining love and sex, to talismans, to medicinal compounds, to (oddly enough) restoring the hymen and preventing your girlfriend from having sex outside of your relationship. Add this to its recipes for soap and liquors and you have a rather strange mix of magick from the period which would directly, it seems, inspire the late 19th centuries' recipe books and family "physician" manuscripts of such great lore.

For those who were interested in patronizing such a release, now it has finally come to be.

Primitive Physic: Now Available!

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This wonderful text dates all the way back to the middle of the 18th century. Mostly herbal and folk remedies, it is an extensive receipt-style work covering over 100 specific conditions for which, often, there are several distinct methods of cure listed. Some of the remedies it lists are dangerous and as such I will mention here that in no way do I condone or encourage its use as a medical guide.

Some things are mentioned more frequently within Wesley's treatise here; agrimony, chamomile, vitriol, and a few other materials are listed dozens of times; others, such as quicksilver, are less frequently employed in his physic system. Overall, it's one of the more comprehensive guides to folk remedy from its era, predating many similar types of work that came half a century or more after its manufacture.

122 pages.

A Poll For You!

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Up until now all of my releases have been self published paperbacks. What if I released, through a publisher of the arcane, a hardcover/fine binding edition of one of my works? Specifically, the work in question, the infamous Petit Albert of French fame? Of course, the softcover edition would remain available- it would be a licensed limited printing of my edition.

Have at it!

The Universal Fortune Teller of Mrs. Bridget - Now Available!

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The 1790 Universal Fortune Teller is not attributed to Napoleon, although later works containing similar (and sometimes utterly plagiarized) content were. This text contains an elaborate backstory in which the editor claims to have obtained a manuscript from the thatched hut of an old wise woman who had recorded her occult findings in heiroglyphic form. Subsequent to cracking this mysterious code the work was then released.

It's fairly obvious that this backstory was an attempt to increase its circulation- but that doesn't detract from the work, which manages to cover astrology, palmistry, and other tricks, rites, and knowledge into just under 100 pages of content. The astrological system here goes well beyond the simple Zodiac and into terms and meanings as well as arcane minutiae.

With a slimmed down dream interpretation section and a buffed up card trick section, this work is comparable to Napoleon's Oraculum in style, minus, of course, the oracle itself. It is also a rather bawdy work, mentioning whoredom, vixens, cuckoldry, and adultery quite frequently in the divination-by-card section.

98 pages.

From the Universal Fortune Teller (1790)

The 1790 version of the Universal Fortune Teller is indeed far stranger than the one I've already released which post-dates it by seventy years. One look at the content and you know you're not exactly reading something from modernity.

The work is substantially more dense than I originally predicted; the astrological content alone stretches well past 40 pages, and that's really only half the work. All told, it might approach or slightly exceed 100 pages in length with a modern format (bibliophiles will know, of course, that many works from the 1700s had what we would now consider tiny typesetting.) Take a look at this passage from the book:

On the seventeenth day the child that shall be born will be foolish to that degree that it shall be almost unnatural, and thereby become a great affliction to his parents. To go on messages this day is unfortunate, yet to contract matrimony, to compound physical preparations, and to take physic is good, but by no means let blood.

On the eighteenth day the child that shall be born, if a male, shall be valiant, courageous, and eloquent; and if a female, chaste, industrious, and painstaking, and shall come to honor in her old age. It is good this day to begin buildings; and to put out our children in order to be brought up in learning. Have a care of being let blood this day for it is very dangerous.

On the nineteenth day the child then born, if a male, shall be renowned for wisdom and virtue and thereby arrive to great honor, but if a female, she will be of a weak and sickly constitution, yet she will live to be married. This day they may bleed that have occasion.

These three short sections are from the end of the astrological work, regarding the birth of children at various stages of the lunar phases. As we see, bloodletting is encouraged according to the day, and what we term a "voyage" or "trip" is (and this is replicated in the work at least two other times) referred to as a "message." I am leaving some of the antiquated English intact in this work for stylistic purposes, where a modern individual will still be able to infer the meaning from context.

This work, oddly, appears to contain less of the "females are only interested in marriage and lovers" content than the 1860 version; indeed, some of the passages refer to women of a vaguely heroic or brawny constitution depending on the circumstance of their birth. This probably relates to the growing moralism of the mid 1800s as opposed to the lingering flames of the enlightened times of the 1700s and the philosophy from that same era.