Published books

By day, Lionel H. Branson was a career officer of the British Indian Army: he served for over 20 years, fought in Mesopotamia during WW1 and retired in the rank of major. But all this time he perfected his craft as a conjurer and explored Asian illusion practices (and even used some of his knowledge in military intelligence). He was a member of The Magic Circle, an organization promoting the art of illusion, and was a fierce debunker of spiritualism and the supernatural. In Indian Conjuring, which sums up his Asian explorations, Major Branson devoted an entire chapter to the Indian rope trick. He offered a large sum of money to anyone who could perform the Indian rope trick; no one ever claimed the reward.

The greatest illusionist in history, stuntman, actor, and a fierce fighter for science and reason—in this book, Harry Houdini exposes the techniques and tricks of those in his own profession who claim to have supernatural abilities. How fire-eaters, sword swallowers, and other masters of deception captivate their audiences? Explore this classic work—and use it wisely!

Before the Brothers Grimm softened their tales, they printed them raw. Dark, brusque, blunt, absurd, comical, and tragic—this books contains real stories of Snow White, Hansel and Gretel, The Little Red Cap, and many more. These aren’t the fairy tales you remember from your childhood. This is the real folklore which the Brothers Grimm recorded and first published in the early 19th century and later edited to be more appealing to the general public.

Vathek, ninth caliph of the Abbasids, has an eye so terrible that a single angry glance can kill. Hungry for every pleasure and every secret, he builds a tower of fifteen hundred stairs, sacrifices fifty children to a mysterious stranger and sets out with his sorceress mother Carathis for the ruined city of Istakhar, where the treasures of the pre-Adamite sultans and the halls of Eblis await him. Written in French by the young William Beckford in 1782 and first published in English in 1786, Vathek is one of the strangest and most extravagant novels of the Gothic age. Published with the translator’s explanatory notes and the memoir of Beckford by William North.

Khoma Brut, a seminary student and merry philosopher, is terrorised by a witch as he keeps a vigil over a beautiful woman who died under mysterious circumstances. Or did she? And who will come for Khoma by the end of the night? This novella by Nikolai Gogol is a staple of Eastern Slavic horror fiction — and it is accompanied by eleven stories written between 1831 and 1842, all in classic English translations.

In the year 2126, Pharaoh Cheops is brought back to life… This classic 1827 Gothic novel is the first English work of fiction which features a reanimated mummy—and even a predecessor of steampunk, in a way. It’s set in a spectacular 300-year future, where women wear trousers and hair ornaments of fire, and surgeons and lawyers are automatons. But, inspired by Frankenstein, Jane Loudon was first and foremost a pioneer of science fiction: her mummy is not really aggressive and actually gives sound political advice to the people of the XXII century.

An ancient story about love, betrayal, chivalry, magic—and werewolves! Melion, a noble knight who serves King Arthur, vows to marry only if he meets a woman who had never loved another man before him. Against all odds, Melion finds a wife, but she will condemn him to terrible hardships. This anonymous Breton lai (rhymed tale), composed at the end of the 12th century, is one of the earliest, most tragic and poetic depictions of a werewolf.

The mother of all Gothic fiction. Conrad, a sickly heir to the house of Otranto, is tragically killed in mysterious circumstances on the day of his wedding. Manfred, his calculating father, decides to his son’s bride himself to save the dynasty. But an ancient curse placed on his ancestors begins to unfold. The Castle of Otranto was created by Horace Walpole, 4th Earl of Orford, an antiquarian, writer, historian, and Whig (Liberal) politician, in the 1760s. Without this novel, there would be no Dracula or Udolpho.

The ultimate Gothic novel, a classic both of horror and science fiction. Mary Shelly’s story about a scientist and his creation, the blurred line between man and monster, gave birth to a whole genre, troves of adaptations, reflections, and philosophical debates. Mary Shelly, the daughter of anarchist William Godwin and women's rights advocate Mary Wollstonecraft, published the novel in 1818 when she was just 19 years old.

You’re a kid, and your parents are definitely not millionaires. What do you do? Obviously, you go to work. In an era when attitudes toward child labor were quite different, the author suggested that school children put their games aside and start selling vegetables (preferably home-grown) or breeding rabbits for profit. In your spare time, you could treat your neighbors to some homemade baked goods or pick up a side hustle as a snow shoveler or a newsboy.
Paradoxically, today this book is not only surprising in its overly pragmatic approach, but also deeply inspiring. After all, it proves that there are countless ways to get richer—as long as you have the will.