Description: Some histories are written. Others have to be conjured back into life.
For more than twenty years, Melissa Seims has followed the trails left behind by the witches, magicians, and occultists of the past - through forgotten archives, private letters, old photographs, magical artefacts and the memories of those who knew them. In Literary Necromancer: Witches and Witchcraft, Melissa Seims brings together a remarkable collection of investigations into the hidden history of modern Witchcraft and magic. Gerald Gardner, Doreen Valiente, Alex Sanders, Charles Clark, and the mysterious Coven of Atho appear alongside lesser-known figures whose stories had almost slipped from view. Along the way lie Witch Wars, lost Books of Shadows, magical swords, secret covens, disputed histories, curious artefacts, and more than a few unexpected rabbit holes. Written with the eye of a researcher and the insight of a practising witch and occultist, these histories are concerned not with preserving legends, but with asking what the surviving evidence can actually tell us. This is literary necromancing: calling the forgotten back into the light and allowing them to tell their stories once more.