Hardback, no dust jacket, 1956 by University books. No marks in text, previous owners name. Clean copy. Additional Details ------------------------------ Product description: What is really quite unique about this book will become apparent if the reader contrasts Montague Summers' book with the apologetic article on witchcraft in the Catholic Encyclopedia. The point is, that although Rev. Alphonseus Joseph Mary August Montague Summers was a Roman Catholic priest his view on witchcraft and demonology differ considerably from the public picture now presented by Catholic Encyclopedists and apologists. He was not ashamed of the greatest excesses committed in the 17th and 18th centuries, on the contrary, he vigorously defends everything the church ever did to extirpate witchcraft and heresy. Thus he provides us in modern English with what is actually the best account of the Roman Catholic version of the history of witchcraft and the Church's fight against it. In doing so, it was father summers' contention, and we are inclined to agree with him, that his account is not only the true story as it appeared to the Catholic Church in the 17th and 18th returnees, but that this remains, despite what Catholic apologists may say in encyclopedias and other public forums, the true position of the Roman Catholic Church today. This point is further developed by Felix Morrow in his new Introduction to this edition, in which he cites the rites of exorcism as they appear in the official documents of the church today. My History of Witchcraft and Demonology caused a sensation and was a best-seller. It was written from what people are pleased to call a Medieval standpoint, an absolute and complete belief i the supernatural and hence in witchcraft.