Description
Book Synopsis'Very beautiful and illuminating' Mariella Frostrup
Edward Brooke-Hitching, author of the international bestseller The Phantom Atlas delivers an atlas unlike any other. The Devil’s Atlas is an illustrated guide to the heavens, hells and lands of the dead as imagined throughout history by cultures and religions around the world. Packed with colourful maps, paintings and captivating stories, the reader is taken on a compelling tour of the geography, history and supernatural populations of the afterworlds of cultures around the globe. Whether it’s the thirteen heavens of
the Aztecs, the Chinese
Taoist netherworld of ‘hungry ghosts’, or the ‘Hell of the Flaming Rooster’ of
Japanese Buddhist mythology (in which sinners are tormented by an enormous fire-breathing cockerel),
The Devil’s Atlas gathers together a wonderful variety of beliefs and repr
Trade Review'A
funny and phantasmagoric tour of humanity’s attempts to survey the afterlife, both high and low. If you’d like to know which author wrote about the bordellos in hell, where to find a tree that grows devil heads, or what angels’ houses might smell like, this book is for you.' -- Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses
'Stunning and utterly fascinating' -- Dan Schreiber – No Such Thing As A Fish
'A
sumptuous collection of artworks, from all over the world, and through the ages, depicting visions of heaven and hell.' * Booktime magazine *
‘In this world of mental exploration, Edward Brooke-Hitching is a
delightful and indispensable guide…For all their horrors, Brooke-Hitching’s hells are ultimately comforting because their solid boundaries keep the dead away from us.’ -- Diane Burkiss * Literary Review *
‘
The Devil’s Atlas entertainingly gathers the hells and underworlds of numerous ages and schools of belief, together with limbos and purgatories, and – at last – the heavens, paradises and utopias. Written in
sparkling scholarship studded with
glittering trivia, abundant education and
monstrous images.’ * Strong Words *
'The perfect shelf-mate to
The Madman's Library,
brimming with vibrant imagery - from the Book of the Dead to Islamic manuscripts to William Blake, and, of course, an entire section devoted to Dante.
Clever writing and astonishing illustrations.' * Fine Books magazine *
