a001
DEMONIALITY
OR
INCUBI AND SUCCUBI
A Treatise
wherein is shown that there are in existence onearth rational creatures besides man, endowed likehim with a body and a soul, that are born and die
By the Rev. Father
SINISTRARI of Ameno
(17th century)
Published from the original Latin manuscript
discovered in London in the year 1872,
and translated into French by Isidore Liseux
Now first translated into English
With the Latin Text.
PARIS
Isidore LISEUX, 2, Rue Bonaparte.
1879
PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION (Paris, 1875, in-8o)
I was in London in the year 1872,and I hunted after old books:
Car que faire là bas, à moins qu’on nebouquine?1
They caused me to live in past ages, happyto escape from the present, and to exchangethe petty passions of the day for the peaceableintimacy of Aldus, Dolet or Estienne.
One of my favourite booksellers was MrAllen, a venerable old gentleman, whose placeof business was in the Euston road, close to thegate of Regent’s park. Not that his shop wasparticularly rich in dusty old books; quite thereverse: it was small, and yet never filled.Scarcely four or five hundred volumes at atime, carefully dusted, bright, arrayed withsymmetry on shelves within reach of one’shand; the upper shelves remained unoccupied.On the right, Theology; on the left, the Greekand Latin Classics in a majority, with someFrench and Italian books; for such wereMr Allen’s specialties; it seemed as if he absolutelyignored Shakespeare and Byron, andas if, in his mind, the literature of his countrydid not go beyond the sermons of Blair orMacculloch.
What, at first sight, struck one most inthose books, was the moderateness of theirprice, compared with their excellent state ofpreservation. They had evidently not beenbought in a lot, at so much a cubic yard, likethe rubbish of an auction, and yet the handsomest,the most ancient, the most venerablefrom their size, folios or quartos, were notmarked higher than 2 or 3 shillings; an octavowas sold 1 shilling, the duodecimo sixpence: each according to its size. Thusruled Mr Allen, a methodical man, if everthere was one; and he was all the better forit, since, faithfully patronized by clergymen,scholars and collectors, he renewed his stockat a rate which more assuming speculatorsmight have envied.
But how did he get those well bound andwell preserved volumes, for which, everywhereelse, five or six times more would have beencharged? Here also Mr Allen had his method,sure and regular. No one attended more assiduouslythe auctions which take place everyday in London: his stand was marked at thefoot of the auctioneer’s desk. The rarest,choicest books passed before his eyes, contendedfor at often fabulous prices by Quaritch,