This is the perfect primer for Dan Brown's next novel. It clearly explains the people, places and historical background that is the Freemasons in Washington DC. Reading this book first will greatly enhance the experience of reading the Dan Brown novel.

Jack is back—and this time, the blood is red. The award-winning bestseller FROM HELL—often ranked among the greatest graphic novels of all time—takes on haunting new dimensions in FROM HELL: Master Edition, enhanced by impressionistic hues and revisions by Eddie Campbell himself, along with all the original annotations by Alan Moore.

Dr. Albert G. Mackey, also the author of The Lexicon of Freemasonry appears as author of this " Encyclopedia of Freemasonry and its Kindred Sciences," which, being a library in inself, superseded most of the Masonic works which have been tolerated by the craft—chiefly because none better could be obtained. Here, in one giant volume is a work which fulfils the hope which sustained the author through ten years' literary labor, that, under one cover he "would furnish every Mason who might consult its pages the means of acquiring a knowledge of all matters connected with the science, the philosophy, and the history of his order." For more than thirty years Dr. Mackey has devoted earnest and constant study and research to the history, the objects, and the condition of Masonry. In the present work, the crowning and successful result of a life's labors, he has received no assistance from any one. He says, " Every article was written by myself," and he adds, which would extenuate errors, had he fallen into any, "For twelve months, too, of the time occupied upon this work, I suffered from an affection of the sight, which forbade all use of the eyes for purposes of study. During that time, now happily passed, all authorities were consulted by the willing eyes of my daughters—all writing was done by their hands. I realized for a time the picture so often painted of the blind bard dictating his sublime verses to his daughters," and his preface closes with the words, "Were I to dedicate this work at all, my dedication should be—To Filial Affection." Up to the present time the modern literature of Freemasonry has been diffuse, lumbering, unreliable, and, out of all reasonable proportions.

A surprisingly large number of English poets have either belonged to a secret society, or been strongly influenced by its tenets. One of the best known examples is Christopher Smart’s membership of the Freemasons, and the resulting influence of Masonic doctrines on A Song to David. However, many other poets have belonged to, or been influenced by not only the Freemasons, but the Rosicrucians, Gormogons and Hell-Fire Clubs. First published in 1986, this study concentrates on five major examples: Smart, Burns, William Blake, William Butler Yeats and Rudyard Kipling, as well as a number of other poets. Marie Roberts questions why so many poets have been powerfully attracted to the secret societies, and considers the effectiveness of poetry as a medium for conveying secret emblems and ritual. She shows how some poets believed that poetry would prove a hidden symbolic language in which to reveal great truths. The beliefs of these poets are as diverse as their practice, and this book sheds fascinating light on several major writers.

Across 1400 years and six continents (sorry, Australia), Impossible Histories examines pivotal moments in history from both sides—what happened and what would have happened had things gone differently. The results are by turns strange, hilarious, tragic...and always fascinating. Imagine a world in which... - Hitler builds a thousand-year Reich - Columbus gets driven from the Americas by mounted knights - Robespierre decapitates Caesar Augustus - The Inca Empire has an air force - Jimmy Carter presses the Button These brave new worlds are merely our own, familiar world—if something small had happened differently. We're all one elephant away from peace in the Middle East, one knife thrust away from nuclear Armageddon. This book examines twenty pivotal moments in history, asks what if?...,and drags the answers kicking and screaming into the light. History--factual and counterfactual has never been so entertaining. A whirlwind ride through history as it never happened--but could have.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1874.