[Rarebooks] Offering: Weyer, De Praestigiis Daemonum, 1885

[Michael John Thompson]

WIER, Iean [Jean Wier, John Wier, Johannes Weyer, 
Johannes Wier, Johann Weyer, Ioannes Wierus; 
1515-1588]

HISTOIRES DISPUTES ET DISCOURS DES ILLUSIONS ET 
IMPOSTURES DES DIABLES, DES MAGICIENS INFAMES,
SORCIERES ET EMPOISONNEURS: Des Ensorcelez et 
Demoniaques et de la Guerison D'Iceux: Item de la Punition que Meritent
Les Magiciens les Empoisonneurs et les sorcieres 
par Iean Wier. Deux Dalogues Tuchant le Puvoir des Sorcieres et de la Punition
qu'elles Meritant par Thomas Erastus. Two Volumes.

Paris: Bureaux du Progres Medical. 1885.

The second edition in French, following that of 
1579. Originally issued as De Praestigiis 
Daemonum et Incantationibus ac Venificiis
(On the Illusions of the Demons and on Spells and 
Poisons), 1563. Octavo, two volumes bound in contemporary half green
morocco over marbled paper boards, marbled 
endpapers, top edges gilt, original printed 
wrappers bound in. 500 copies printed, of
which this is copy #17 of printed 'sur papier 
parchemin'; an additional 150 copies were printed 
'sur papier du Japon' (Japanese
vellum). Issued as a volume in the publisher's 
collection BIBLIOTHEQUE DIABOLIQUE. 624 pp + 608 pp, Index, engraved
frontispiece portrait of the author in Volume 1. 
Contemporary heraldic bookplates on front 
endpapers, mild rubbing to the bindings;
a very good set. ¶ A monumental work, widely 
acknowledged as one of the key texts of 
Renaissance demonology. Wier is considered a 
pioneer in the fields of medicine and psychiatry, 
and he believed witch hunts were misguided 
attempts to punish harmless and crazy old women. 
De Praestigiis Daemonum is basically a 
point-by-point rebuttal of the hateful witch 
hunter's handbook, Malleus Maleficarum. He is 
said to have been the first person that used the 
term "mentally ill" to designate those women 
accused of practicing witchcraft. He was also a 
firm believer in magic, and was in fact a student 
of one of the most famous occultists of all time, 
Henri Cornelius Agrippa. His book includes 
interesting reports of Faust, Agrippa, and 
Trithemius from a contemporary witness. Wier went 
on to write other works, including 
Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, a catalog of demons 
which closely resembles the Lemegeton, or Lesser 
Key of Solomon. Sigmund Freud calls the 
Praestigiis Daemonum "one of the ten most 
significant books of all time".  The work was not 
translated into English until 1991.

$400.00 US

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Terms: as usual.



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