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| The Secret Commonwealth: Of Elves, Fauns, and Fairies (New York Review Books Classics) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Kirk
Creator: Marina Warner
Publisher: NYRB Classics
Category: Book
List Price: $16.95 (39.90 RON)
Buy New: $11.53 (27.14 RON)
You Save: $5.42 (12.76 RON) (32%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  2 reviews
Sales Rank: 620844
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 144
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.2 x 4.9 x 0.8
ISBN: 1590171772
Dewey Decimal Number: 130
EAN: 9781590171776
ASIN: 1590171772
Publication Date: November 21, 2006
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
Late in the seventeenth century, Robert Kirk, an Episcopalian minister in the Scottish Highlands, set out to collect his parishioners’ many striking stories about elves, fairies, fauns, doppelgangers, wraiths, and other beings of, in Kirk’s words, “a middle nature betwixt man and angel.” For Kirk these stories constituted strong evidence for the reality of a supernatural world, existing parallel to ours, which, he passionately believed demanded exploration as much as the New World across the seas. Kirk defended these views in The Secret Commonwealth, an essay that was left in manuscript when he died in 1692. It is a rare and fascinating work, an extraordinary amalgam of science, religion, and folklore, suffused with the spirit of active curiosity and bemused wonder that fills Robert Burton’s Anatomy of Melancholy and the works of Sir Thomas Browne. The Secret Commonwealth is not only a remarkable document in the history of ideas but a study
of enchantment that enchants in its own right.
First published in 1815 by Sir Walter Scott, then re-edited in 1893 by Andrew Lang, with a dedication to Robert Louis Stevenson, The Secret Commonwealth has long been difficult to obtain—available, if at all, only in scholarly editions. This new edition modernizes the spelling and punctuation of Kirk’s little book and features a wide-ranging and illuminating introduction by the critic and historian Marina Warner, who brings out the originality of Kirk’s contribution and reflects on the ongoing life of fairies in the modern mind.
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| Customer Reviews:
Truth into one great whole. September 7, 2008
If you are curious about the link between Christianity and the Fairy Faith of the Celts, this is the one book you must read. Written by a pastor of the middle ages, who also happens to meet the requirements of a scottish seer, Kirk tells things you probably will never read anywhere else!
I find this book to be filled with truth, at least as it was.
A Classic in the Field July 16, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This is one of the must-reads if you're interested in the historical literature of the field.
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