1933 Rare Book - The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns and Fairies by Robert Kirk.
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(description)
Author: KIRK, Robert. (Comments - LANG, Andrew).
Title: The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies. Comment by Andrew Lang, introduction by R.B. Cunninghame Graham.
Publisher: Stirling: Eneas Mackay, 1933.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9 " X 7 ".
Pages: 128 pages.
Binding: Very good original full cloth binding (hinges fine) with a very good dust jacket (small tears and chips - as shown) under a protective removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content (bright, tight and clean, rare light foxing - as shown).
Illustrations: Complete with the nice frontispiece by D.Y. Cameron of the Hill of the Fairies at Aberfoyle.
The book: Rare edition of The Secret Commonwealth of Elves, Fauns & Fairies. Uncommon. 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.