This Halloween week, a devilish dive into our archives to unearth some supernatural treats...
Eerie Essays
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Defining the Demonic
Although Jacques Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire infernal, a monumental compendium of all things diabolical, was first published in 1818 to much success, it is the fabulously illustrated final edition of 1863 which secured the book as a landmark in the study and representation of demons. Ed Simon explores the work and how at its heart lies an unlikely but pertinent synthesis of the Enlightenment and the occult.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Woodcuts and Witches
Jon Crabb on the witch craze of early modern Europe, and how the concurrent rise of the mass-produced woodcut helped forge the archetype of the broom-riding crone — complete with cauldron and cats — so familiar today.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Marked by Stars: Agrippa’s Occult Philosophy
Reading Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa’s encyclopedic study of magic is like stumbling into a vast cabinet of curiosities, where toad bones boil water, witches transmit misery through optical darts, and numbers, arranged correctly, can harness the planets’ powers. Anthony Grafton explores the Renaissance polymath’s occult insights into the structure of the universe.
Creepy Collections
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Halloween Postcards, ca. 1900–1920
A collection of Halloween postcards produced in the so-called “golden age” of picture postcards.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Spectropia; or, Surprising Spectral Illusions (1865)
A book of Victorian hi-tech ghost conjuring which allows the reader to summon, as the sub-title proclaims, ghosts everywhere and of any colour.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Sabine Baring-Gould’s Book of Were-Wolves (1865)
Landmark study collecting global tales relating to lycanthropes and other human-animal transformations.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Kawanabe Kyōsai’s Night Parade of One Hundred Demons (1890)
A bone-chilling book of woodblock prints, depicting a parade of demons, by Kawanabe Kyōsai, the bad boy of 19th-century Japanese art.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Spells Against the Evil Spirits of Babylonia (1903)
Babylonian and Assyrian incantations against various demons, ghouls, vampires, hobgoblins, ghosts, and evil spirits.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Hokusai’s Ghost Stories (ca. 1830)
Hokusai’s five ghoulish prints for the series Hyaku Monogatari [One Hundred Ghost Stories].
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.“That’s Why We Become Witches”: Sylvia Townsend Warner’s Lolly Willowes (1926)
A novel about a woman who throws off the yoke of patriarchy to become a witch.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Book of Dreams and Ghosts (1897)
Seventy-eight weird happenings are contained in this volume, from a demon strangling Devonian farmers in 1682 to a poltergeist terrorising a contemporary Chinese couple.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Bakemono Zukushi “Monster” Scroll (18th–19th century)
Ghoulish array of shapeshifting monsters from Japanese folklore.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Häxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages (1922)
Curious and groundbreaking mix of documentary and silent horror cinema, written and directed by Benjamin Christensen.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Sorceress by Jan van de Velde II (1626)
Remarkable engraving of a sorceress mid-conjure, with a motley crew of demonic figures.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Infernal Cauldron (1903)
Short film by Georges Méliès featuring demons, flames, spectres, and a brilliant array of the film-maker’s usual arsenal of tricks.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things (1904)
Lafcadio Hearn’s collection of Japanese ghost stories.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Key of Hell: an 18th-Century Manual on Black Magic
Images from the Clavis Inferni, a late-18th-century book on black magic.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Compendium of Demonology and Magic (ca. 1775)
More than 30 exquisite watercolours of demon figures, with magic and cabbalistic signs.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Jap Herron: A Novel Written from the Ouija Board (1917)
The novel written, supposedly, by a deceased Mark Twain from beyond the grave, dictated via a Ouija board.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.The Spirit Photographs of William Hope
Controversial “spirit” photographs by medium William Hope, from an album found in a Lancashire bookshop.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.Wolf Blood (1925)
Dick the lumberjack gets a blood transfusion with unexpected results — the oldest surviving werewolf movie.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.
Scroll through the whole page to download all images before printing.A Melting Cauldron: The Book of Hallowe’en (1919)
The first book-length history of Halloween, written when the author was a mere twenty-six years old.
Spooky Specimens from Our Prints Shop
Explore our prints under the subject of “occult”, including works by Hokusai and Robert Fludd. Custom-made with archival inks on premium fine art paper. All profits support the project.
Ghoulish goings-on at our sister-site, the Public Domain Image Archive
Explore almost 400 images gathered under “Ghosts & Occult” in the Public Domain Image Archive — a curated collection of 10,000+ historical images, free to explore and reuse, and a database of images featured in the PDR.
