Dwellers on the Threshold or Magic and Magicians

London: John Maxwell and Company. 1844.

First edition. From the Library of the Theosophical Society in England. Two volumes. 8vo. 187x125mm. pp. xx, 315 [1bl]; xv, [ibl], 308. Publisher's green cloth, lettered in gilt to spine, with library shelfmark at foot of spine. Front pastedown has the bookplate of the Theosophical Library. Some rubbing and bumping to extremities. Internally very good.
Davenport Adams is said to have been a voracious reader as a child and this book suggests wide and, it must be said, somewhat directionless reading. It is a history of magic, a biography of magicians and people with magical powers(Paracelsus, Henry Cornelius Agrippa, John Dee and Mesmer appear) and a study of alchemy, divination and witchcraft. He roams widely and entertainingly. Davenport Adams must have been good company. His range of interests was vast. He published an edition of Shakespeare, books about English monarchs, works of military and naval history, natural history and a two volume study of "English Party Leaders". Presumably he got the idea for this from his work on the fakes and frauds he encountered in Dwellers on the Threshold.