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.

A Poll For You!

LINK TO POLL

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 Petit Albert In English, Now Available!

BUY YOUR COPY HERE

And now the moment you've all been waiting for- or at least those of you gobbling up all the occult literature you can find.

The Petit Albert is perhaps the best of all grimoires; longer and more in depth than the Red Dragon, more diabolical (at times) than the Grimorium Verum, and significantly more refined than the Black Pullet for talismanic workings. Unfortunately, until today editions of this same work have fallen into three categories; those in the original French (useless to most of the English speaking occult world), limited English editions, often expensive, which often seem to make wild claims notably that it was the "Grimoire of Marie Laveau", and ebook-only editions that seem never to allow a preview; that this may indicate a lower quality product is clear.

As such I took the liberty of translating, editing, and illustrating this edition myself line by line- my French skills are intermediate with regards to written material (and far less than intermediate in speech!) but it wasn't particularly difficult- the similarities of the French language to English made it simple to translate the headers of each section and proceed from there with help from a French-English dictionary and copious amounts of caffeine. I have held the price of the edition down specifically because I want my name associated with what might be the first "good" English release of the work.

The content can be roughly arranged into the following; passages with folk rites (mostly medicinal), alchemical passages with a utilitarian purpose in mind, and talismans. The talismans include as well an extremely simplistic expose on planets, days, and hours, and associate with a variety of perfumes (fumigation) used to consecrate the symbols themselves. While some of the chemical workings here are blatantly hazardous (the work admits this, especially where it suggests cooking with arsenic!) most are fairly easy to understand. We even see here recipes for what we might amusingly consider fertilizer among other things, and the use of saltpeter as a medicine is rampant.

It's origin appears to have centered around a person or person's at the time which compiled material both domestic and foreign, old (at the time) and then-modern. I make the claim here that this represents the first truly cosmopolitan grimoire; we see many of them in the modern age; many of the recently authored works we see from some of the occult publishing firms of the world combine, for example, Vedic spiritual systems with western esotericism- which is decried by purists and applauded by many a modern mage. Opinions aside on the subject it hardly matters whether the reader even believes in the occult, because the academic, here, can clearly see a cross section of the early enlightenment period and the cosmopolitan nature present in this literature, drawing its inspiration from (and explicitly crediting some of the material to) rites and practices from around Europe and beyond.

I've now edited a great many occult works from the Renaissance and Enlightenment periods and released them, and after the translating was finished for the Petit Albert I think this may be the finest of them all.

Coming Soon: English Edition of the Petit Albert

The Petit Albert (the Little Albert, in short) is the foremost text within the French cycle of grimoires; one part talismanic art, one part herbal and folk magick, and one part philosophical text, it derives heavily from Paracelsus- or rather Paracelsus as envisioned by occultists of the era. Most often found in its original French, the only english edition I've been able to track down is a sort of limited edition version, along with a pdf supposedly translated to English which I didn't bother to pay for to see if it was any good. There is also a sort of seemingly jerry-rigged edition compiling some of its material for "The Spellbook of Marie Laveau" which may or may not be a serious attempt at translation. Linking this legendary figure with an enlightenment era text from France, I assume, is merely a function of the French infused Louisiana tradition of her own age.

As such, and because I'm tolerably good with the French language (in writing and reading it, anyways; speak to me in French and I'll understand at best half your words) I have begun translating the text myself from one of the older editions in the original language. Strangely, of the three versions I considered, they all appear to show differences from one another; I have to assume that other French cycle works were variously intermixed with the same, and there is also the Grand Albert of similar origin which I also need to have a look at eventually.

I'm editing as I translate, which is no small task, but I've made considerable progress already; after illustrating it I may also annotate the entire work, since even after translation there are numerous terms (often also found in alchemical manuscripts) which the reader may need a further explanation of. The work is at least as diabolical as the Grand Grimoire, and possibly moreso, on par with the infamous Grimorium Verum as to its strange, sometimes dangerous content (including cooking mercury and obtaining the blood of bats, boiled frogs, and other living things.) For most of the occult works I made a standard disclaimer suffices but any time someone tells you to turn henbane seeds into incense or to make potions with cat blood something more significant is likely necessary.

I have not chosen its format yet so I can't give an estimation of its page number but I can say it's a longer work than most other grimoires.