The Witches' Frolic: 18th-19th century illustrated book on how witches like to party

Xeni Jardin 10:06 am Tue Jul 15, 2014

Scans of a wonderful 19th century book (with 18th-century origins) about witches are making the internet rounds anew. Above and below, 20 pages from 'The Witches Frolic' by Thomas Ingoldsby, with illustrations by Ernest M. Jessop.

UK "supernatural and weird" book specialists The Side Real Press scanned and posted a total of 20 scans in 2012 on their blog, and we're cross-posting them here for posterity. Their description follows:

'The Ingoldsby Legends' where written by the Clergyman Thomas Barham (1788-1845) under the pseudonym 'Thomas Ingoldsby', and originally published piecemeal in Bentleys Miscellany before being collected in book form in the early 1840s.

The tales were written as poems, and are both humorous and macabre. Though the book is largely out of fashion nowadays, it was immensely popular in its time and many handsome editions were printed, often with illustrations by the great artists of the day such as Cruikshank, Tenniel and Rackham.

The images here are from a large format edition, one of a series of such, illustrated by Ernset Jessop (1792–1870).

See the full set here.

A wonderful related post on their blog is this occult calendar.

Click any image for larger size.

[via Theremina]

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