The Magic and Mysteries of Mexico; Or The Arcane Secrets and Occult Lore of The Ancient Mexicans and Maya

London: Rider and Co, n.d.[1930]. First U.K. Edition. Octavo. Publisher's red cloth titled and ruled in gilt to spine. 288pp. Some light wear and bumping to extremities and spine ends; sunning to the spine panel and the margins of the boards, the book has clearly been kept in a bookshelf exposed to sunlight; clean and strong; internally clean but toned throughout, with some light discoloration of the full page plates and offsetting. A very good, solid copy, with some wear.

Spence's researches, undeniably scholarly and accomplished as they were, had a habit of attempting to cover every related subject to the field at hand. As a result of this, (truncated) whilst his Fairy related, Scottish folklore, and more historically focussed work gets the respect it deserves, a lot of his more esoteric inclusions aren't considered. His consideration of the New World mythologies, and a later focus on North African folklore (he believed that the original "Britons" came up out of North Africa and along the Golden Bow through the Bay of Biscay and up along the Western coasts of Cornwall, Wales, and Scotland), led Spence into an intensive study of Atlantis and Lemurian myths at a time when such researches were more the territory of the gently wild eyed and obsessed. As a result, significant sections of his work are outside of "respectable" scholarship. At the time Spence wrote this work on Mexico and adjacent ancient civilizations, it was the first attempt anyone had made to collect historical and folkloric data together in one accessible location. (Inventory #: 85085)