Items related to The Magic Island
Synopsis
This is the book that introduced Black Magic, Zombies and the World of Voodoo as practiced on the island of Haiti. It created a tremendous sensation and became a best seller when first published in 1929. What many people do not realize is that Voodoo is a living religion still widely practiced in the United States especially in New Orleans and Brooklyn. This book introduced the world of zombies, of dead people who walk as though they were alive. It brought on an endless stream of horror movies that are still coming out today or are still in production. It showed a world of human sacrifices. It showed a living religion, Voodoo, wherein is the ritual eating of flesh and drinking of blood, witchcraft, sorcery and black magic; a religion where the image of the Catholic Virgin and the cross stand with a host of gods, the black counterparts of the Greek Gods. It found living things that we have long thought dead in the storehouses of anthropological lore. It is the first articulate White witness to its rituals, songs, its sacrifices. This book recounts the adventures and emotional experiences of Mr. Seabrook who spent many months living among the natives. Although he had traveled over half the world, he sensed the mystery of this Island of Black Magic. He found among the millions of blacks who dwell in electric-lighted towns, jungle-covered mountains, dark valleys, an emotional wisdom that we, and perhaps the whole civilized world, have lost. He found a people who know that life itself is a beautiful and terrifying adventure.
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From the Back Cover
"The best and most thrilling book of exploration that we have ever read ... [an] immensely important book."--New York Evening Post
"A series of excellent stories about one of the most interesting corners of the American world, told by a keen and sensitive person who knows how to write."--American Journal of Sociology
"It can be said of many travelers that they have traveled widely. Of Mr. Seabrook a much finer thing may be said--he has traveled deeply."--The New York Times Book Review
This fascinating book, first published in 1929, offers firsthand accounts of Haitian voodoo and witchcraft rituals. Journalist and adventurer William Seabrook introduced the concept of the walking dead―zombies―to the West with his illustrated travelogue. He relates his experiences with the voodoo priestess who initiated him into the religion's rituals, from soul transference to resurrection. In addition to twenty evocative line drawings by Alexander King, this edition features a new Foreword by cartoonist and graphic novelist Joe Ollmann and a new Introduction by George A. Romero, director of Night of the Living Dead.
About the Author
William Buehler Seabrook was a journalist and explorer whose interest in the occult lead him across the globe where he studied magic rituals, trained as a witch doctor, and famously ate human flesh, likening it to veal. Despite his studious accounts of magical practices, he insisted he had never seen anything which could not be explained rationally. William Buehler Seabrook was an American adventurer, explorer, world traveler and journalist, born in Westminster, Maryland on February 22, 1884. He began his career as a reporter and City Editor of the Augusta Chronicle in Georgia and was later a reporter for The New York Times. He wrote a books based on his adventures including “Adventures in Arabia: Among the Bedouins, Druses, Whirling Dervisches & Yezidee Devil Worshipers”. He wrote books about witchcraft, Voodoo and Haiti. He is credited with introducing the word “Zombie” into the English Language. The first book covering the topics was William Seabrook's The Magic Island (1929). He died by suicide on September 20, 1945.
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