The Devil's Atlas. An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds. First Printing. Signed by Author. NEW

Brooke-Hitching, Edward

ISBN 10: 139850355X / ISBN 13: 9781398503557

Published by London. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2021

About this Item

London. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd. 2021. First Edition/First Printing (full number line including 1 to copyright page). Hard Cover. Medium 8vo . 6.5 x 9.3 inches (16.5cm x 23.4cm) approx. 245 pp. Black cloth boards with metallic red titles to the spine. Lavishly produced book with richly decorated colour endpapers. Front cover of dust wrapper shows 'Mankind's Eternal Dilemma. The Choice between Virtue and Vice'. 1633. Rear wrap shows Bruegel's 'the Fall of the Rebel Angels'. Book and jacket are both in fine condition. The book is gorgeously illustrated throughout and published on quality stock. Flat signed by the author without dedication to the illustrated half title. Scarce in signed state. gathers together a wonderful variety of beliefs and representations of life after death. These afterworlds are illustrated with an unprecedented collection of images, ranging from the marvellous infernal cartography of the European Renaissance artists attempting to map the structured Hell described by Dante and the decorative Islamic depictions of Paradise to the various efforts to map the Garden of Eden and the spiritual vision paintings of nineteenth-century mediums. It accompanies beautiful images with a highly readable trove of surprising facts and narratives, from the more inventive torture methods awaiting sinners, to colourful eccentric catalogues of demons, angels and assorted death deities.

Seller Inventory # 2308APR017

Bibliographic Details

• Title: The Devil's Atlas. An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds. First Printing. Signed by Author. NEW
• Publisher: London. Simon & Schuster UK Ltd
• Publication Date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 139850355X
• ISBN 13: 9781398503557
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: As New
• Signed: Signed by Author(s)
• Seller catalogs:
  • arts, artists, religion

About this title

Synopsis

'Very beautiful and illuminating' Mariella Frostrup
Edward Brooke-Hitching, author of the international bestseller The Phantom Atlas delivers an atlas unlike any other. The Devil’s Atlas is an illustrated guide to the heavens, hells and lands of the dead as imagined throughout history by cultures and religions around the world. Packed with colourful maps, paintings and captivating stories, the reader is taken on a compelling tour of the geography, history and supernatural populations of the afterworlds of cultures around the globe.

Whether it’s the thirteen heavens of the Aztecs, the Chinese Taoist netherworld of ‘hungry ghosts’, or the ‘Hell of the Flaming Rooster’ of Japanese Buddhist mythology (in which sinners are tormented by an enormous fire-breathing cockerel), The Devil’s Atlas gathers together a wonderful variety of beliefs and representations of life after death. These afterworlds are illustrated with an unprecedented collection of images, ranging from the marvellous ‘infernal cartography’ of the European Renaissance artists attempting to map the structured Hell described by Dante and the decorative Islamic depictions of Paradise to the various efforts to map the Garden of Eden and the spiritual vision paintings of nineteenth-century mediums.

The Devil’s Atlas accompanies beautiful images with a highly readable trove of surprising facts and narratives, from the more inventive torture methods awaiting sinners, to colourful eccentric catalogues of demons, angels and assorted death deities. A traveller’s guide to worlds unseen, The Devil’s Atlas is a fascinating study of the boundless capacity of human invention, a visual chronicle of man’s hopes, fears and fantasies of what lies beyond.

About the Author

Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling books The Phantom Atlas (2016), The Golden Atlas (2018), The Sky Atlas (2019), The Madman's Library (2020) and The Devil's Atlas (2021), all of which have been translated into numerous languages; he is also the author of Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports (2015). He is a writer for the BBC series QI. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an incurable cartophile, he lives surrounded by dusty heaps of old maps and books in Berkshire.