Product Description

A fabulously entertaining work with over 100 delightful illustrations--Library Journal calls Spirits, Fairies, Leprechauns, and Goblins its "favorite work of 1996." In more than 2,000 alphabetically arranged entries, readers will meet angels, demons, elves, encantados, fairies, familiars, keremets, nats, nymphs, and many other strange beings from around the world. Carol Rose introduces the reader to the little--and not so little--folk, delightfully various and, at the same time, strikingly similar from country to country. Wherever humans have lived, the supernatural beings have dwelt alongside us. People serve to explain the unexplainable--the strange disappearance of a traveler in a dark wood, that odd thumping in the attic, the fresh cream turned sour overnight. Often they reveal the stoic humor with which human societies have faced their difficulties. But whatever their source, our guilts, fears, dreams, or imaginations, the spirits have fascinated and enchanted us through the millennia. Chosen by Library Journal as a Best Reference Source.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #309354 in Books
• Published on: 1998-08
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 369 pages

Review
The variety of cultures represented is breathtaking. . . . Rose's encyclopedia will enrich reference collections in several thousand little ways. -- Rettig on Reference

About the Author
Carol Rose is a research member at the University of Kent and senior lecturer at Canterbury College, England.

Customer Reviews

Amazing
This book is incredible. It not only contains thousands of entries, encyclopedia-style, but it cross-references them geographically and by type of creature. I've learned tons. I read this book not only for fun, but as a resource in my work as a writer of fantasy. I have other books like it, but this one is essential.

Fabulous reference
This book is superb. It is comprehensive, authoritative, and an invaluable reference guide for writers and other researchers. I was hesitant when I saw the listed reading level as age 4-8. That's clearly an error. This is a book for adults, and a really good one.

Just what the title indicates
This is an amazingly comprehensive volume cataloguing spirits--supernatural beings less powerful than deities--from cultures around the world.

A book like this is hard to summarize in a review, but it suffices to say that this is a wonderfully broad overview of the subject, covering every culture and every spirit you can think of, with only a little bit of oversimplification. (Durga, for example, is referred to as evil, which is somewhat less than accurate.) Spirits, demons, djinns, faeries, and their kin are all present and accounted for. Use this as a first reference, then make sure to look more deeply into whatever interests you most.