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Description: First edition of this key work in the history of fairy research. David MacRitchie was a Scottish folklorist and antiquarian who founded the Gypsy Lore Society in 1888. He is now best known as an enthusiast of the "Fairy Euhemerism" theory, which posited that fairies were a folk-memory of a small-statured pre-Celtic race. MacRitchie first posited the theory in The Testimony of Tradition (1890) before expanding it significantly in the present work. "Buttressing his case with philological, topographical, traditional, and historical proofs, MacRitchie correlated fairy lore with the archaeological remains of underground abodes as evidence for the existence of an ancient, dwarflike, non-Aryan race in England" (Silver, p. 48). Several of the key authorities on fairy lore of the day, including Andrew Lang, Alfred Nutt, and Sabine Baring-Gould took issue with MacRitchie's theory, while others, such as Elizabeth Andrews and Joseph Jacobs, attempted to recreate similar studies in their own regions. This is a fascinating example of the Victorian application of newly popular sciences to the supernatural in the period. MacRitchie's theory both attempted to demythologise the elfin world, basing it firmly in historical fact, while also attempting to categorise it according to contemporary race theory. Carole G. Silver, Strange and Secret Peoples, Fairies and Victorian Consciousness, 2000. Tall octavo. Original green cloth, spine lettered in gilt, black ruling at head and foot running across covers and spine, dark green coated endpapers. Frontispiece with tissue guard and 21 black and white plates. Cloth bright, minor rubbing at spine ends and corners, scattered foxing; a very good copy.
Seller: Peter Harrington. ABA/ ILAB., London, United Kingdom