Wisdom, humor, and dark observations by the founder of the Church of Satan. LaVey ponders such topics as nonconformity, occult faddism, erotic politics, the "Goodguy badge," demoralization and the construction of artificial human companions.

Milton's Paradise Lost. Goethe's Faust. Aaron Spelling's Satan's School for Girls? Laurence A. Rickels scours the canon and pop culture in this all-encompassing study on the Devil. Continuing the work he began in his influential book The Vampire Lectures, Rickels returns with his trademark wit and encyclopedic knowledge to go mano a mano with the Prince of Darkness himself.

Ti-Jean and his Brothers was Derek Walcott's first venture into musical plays and is still his most popular work. A lilting St Lucian folk-tale, it tells the story of a poor family who dwell on the edge of a magical forest haunted by the devil's spirits. The brilliance of Walcott's writing draws us into the realms of fantasy where the actual and the miraculous collide. Dennis Scott's An Echo in the Bone is set during a traditional Nine-Night Ceremony held to honour the spirit of the dead. Shattering sequential time in a series of dreamlike episodes the play takes us back to the time of plantations and slavery - and the savage murder of the white estate owner. Who killed Mr. Charles? The answers lie deep in the racial memory, they 'echo in the bone'. The giddy atmosphere of carnival is the setting for Errol Hill's Man Better Man, a rumbustious, colourful comedy musical about stickfighters. With dance and song the battling troubadours and the calypsonian weave a tale of braver, superstition and fraudulence. When first performed the Times described it as 'a blazing electrifying feast of rhythm and colour'.

Although Northrop Frye's first book, Fearful Symmetry (1947), elevated the reputation of William Blake from the status of a minor eccentric to that of a major Romantic poet, Frye in fact saw Blake as a poet (and, consequently, himself as a critic) not of the Romantic period, but of the Renaissance. As such, Frye's meditations on the Renaissance are particularly valuable. This volume collects six of Frye's notebooks and five sets of his typed notes on subjects related to Renaissance literature. Michael Dolzani divides these notes into three categories: those on Spenser and the epic tradition; those on Shakespearean drama and, more widely, the dramatic tradition from Old Comedy to the masque; and those on lyric poetry and non-fiction prose. The organization of this volume reflects 'a comprehensive study of Renaissance Symbolism' in three volumes, which Frye proposed to the Guggenheim Foundation in 1949. Frye received a Guggenheim fellowship, but never wrote the book; nevertheless, his application, part of which is also included here, is an important document. The Guggenheim application not only reveals the outlines of Frye's thinking about literature, it also uncovers his plans for his future creative life during the crucial period between his completion of Fearful Symmetry and his absorption in the writing of Anatomy of Criticism. In addition to providing insight into Frye's thinking process, the material collected into this key volume in the Collected Works is of particular importance because much of it has no direct counterpart in any of Frye's other published works.

Michael Dolzani divides these notes into three categories: those on Spenser and the epic tradition; those on Shakespearean drama and, more widely, the dramatic tradition from Old Comedy to the masque; and those on lyric poetry and non-fiction prose.

Interstellar antiquities dealer Alex Benedict and his assistant Chase Kolpath travel to the most remote of human worlds and uncover a secret connected to a decades-old political upheaval-a secret that somebody desperately wants hidden.

• Includes never-before-published material from LaVey, including transcripts from his never-released “Hail Satan!” video • Shares in-depth interviews with intimate friends and collaborators, including LaVey’s partner Blanche Barton, his son Xerxes LaVey, and current heads of the Church of Satan Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia • Provides inside accounts of the Church of Satan and activities at the Black House, personal stories and anecdotes from the very colorful life of the Black Pope, and firsthand explanations of key principles of LaVey’s philosophy With his creation of the infamous Church of Satan in 1966 and his bestselling book The Satanic Bible in 1969, Anton Szandor LaVey (1930-1997) became a controversial celebrity who basked in the attention and even made a successful career out of it. But who was Anton LaVey behind the public persona that so easily provoked Christians and others intolerant of his views? One of privileged few who spent time with the “Black Pope” in the last decade of his life, Carl Abrahamsson met Anton LaVey in 1989, sparking an “infernally” empowering friendship. In this book Abrahamsson explores what LaVey was really about, where he came from, and how he shaped the esoteric landscape of the 1960s. The author shares in-depth interviews with the notorious Satanist’s intimate friends and collaborators, including LaVey’s partner Blanche Barton; his son, Xerxes LaVey; current heads of the Church of Satan, Peter Gilmore and Peggy Nadramia; occult filmmaker Kenneth Anger; LaVey’s personal secretary Margie Bauer; film collector Jack Stevenson; and film historian Jim Morton. Abrahamsson also shares never-before-published material from LaVey himself, including discussions between LaVey and Genesis P-Orridge and transcribed excerpts from LaVey’s never-released “Hail Satan!” video. Providing inside accounts of the Church of Satan and activities at the Black House, this intimate exploration of Anton LaVey reveals his ongoing role in the history of culture and magic.