Goethe's Faust on this Day in History

This day in history: Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's tragic play "Faust, Part 1" premiered on this day in 1829.

This play was based on the Faust legend, one of the most popular story lines in literature and imagination. The Faust legend has been the basis for many literary, artistic, cinematic, and musical works that have reinterpreted it through the ages. "Faust" and the adjective "Faustian" imply sacrificing spiritual values for power, knowledge, or material gain.

The idea that you can enter into a deal (contract/compact) with the devil has fascinated minds for centuries. This theme has been used in books (The Picture of Dorian Gray, Rosemary's Baby, Memnoch the Devil, The Bottle Imp by Robert Louis Stevenson, The Devil and Tom Walker etc), in movies (Crossroads, Sleepy Hollow, O Brother Where Art Thou?, Constantine, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny, Ghost Rider, The Witch etc) and in songs ("The Devil Went Down to Georgia" by The Charlie Daniels Band, "Cross Road Blues" by Robert Johnson, "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, "Deal with the Devil" by Judas Priest, "The Width of a Circle" by David Bowie, "The Black Rider" by Tom Waits etc) and TV and video games as well.

Even popes are said to have made compacts with the Devil. Read more at

https://thebookshelf2015.blogspot.com/2016/12/contracts-with-devil-by-george-jacob.html

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Sympathy for the Devil on This Day in History

 

This day in history: The Rolling Stones released the album Beggars Banquet, which contained the classic song "Sympathy for the Devil" on this day in 1968.

The song has received critical acclaim and features on Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Songs of All Time list. It is the 22nd best ranked song on critics' all-time lists according to Acclaimed Music.

Jagger stated in the Rolling Stone interview: "it's a very long historical figure – the figures of evil and figures of good – so it is a tremendously long trail he's made as personified in this piece." By the time Beggars Banquet was released, the Rolling Stones had already caused controversy for sexually forward lyrics such as "Let's Spend the Night Together" and their cover of the Willie Dixon's blues "I Just Want to Make Love to You". There were also claims they had dabbled in Satanism (their previous album, while containing no direct Satanic references in its music or lyrics, was titled Their Satanic Majesties Request). "Sympathy" brought these concerns to the fore, provoking media rumors and fears among some religious groups that the Stones were devil worshippers and a corrupting influence on youth.

The lyrics focus on atrocities in mankind's history from Satan's point of view, including the trial and death of Jesus Christ, European wars of religion, the violence of the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the 1918 execution of the Romanov family during World War I, and World War II. The song was originally written with a line asking who shot Kennedy, but after Robert F. Kennedy's assassination on 6 June 1968, the line was changed to reference both assassinations.

The song may have been spared further controversy when the first single from the same album, "Street Fighting Man", became even more controversial in view of the race riots and student protests occurring in many cities in Europe and in the United States.

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Exorcist Author William Peter Blatty on this Day in History

 

This Day in History: American writer, director and producer William Peter Blatty was born on this day (January 7) in 1928.  He is best known for his 1971 novel, The Exorcist, and for his 1974 screenplay for the film adaptation of the same name. Blatty won an Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for The Exorcist, and was nominated for Best Picture as its producer. 

The Exorcist is the story of a twelve-year-old girl possessed by a powerful demon, that topped The New York Times Best Seller list for 17 weeks and remained on the list for 57 consecutive weeks. The book sold more than 13 million copies in the United States alone and was translated into over a dozen languages. He later adapted it with director William Friedkin into the film version. Blatty went on to win an Academy Award for his Exorcist screenplay, as well as Golden Globes for Best Picture and Best Writing. 

It also became the first horror film ever to be nominated for the best picture Oscar.

"The movie was marketed as 'based on a true story', but many just believed it to be a marketing gimmick, which in fact, was not true. William Blatty, the writer of the book was actually inspired by exorcisms that happened in real life.

William Blatty came to know about a secret journal kept by the assistant to a Priest who performed exorcisms. He set out to track it down and obtain it.

He had a hard time obtaining it as the Priest who held the journal denied accessing it from anyone else. Eventually, he was able to obtain and read it. It wowed him when he went through the journal, as it told about the real story of a young boy from Maryland and his battle with what his parents believed to be demonic possession. Although Blatty changed several aspects in his novel, such as the age and gender of the child who was possessed." Source

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Satanist Anton LaVey on this Day in History

 

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This Day in History: Anton LaVey (Howard Stanton Levey) was born on this day (April 11) in 1930. Anton LaVey was the founder of the Church of Satan and the religion of Satanism. He also authored The Satanic Bible.

Historian of Satanism Gareth J. Medway described LaVey as a "born showman", with anthropologist Jean La Fontaine describing him as a "colourful figure of considerable personal magnetism". The academic scholars of Satanism Per Faxneld and Jesper Aagaard Petersen described LaVey as "the most iconic figure in the Satanic milieu". LaVey was labeled many things by journalists, religious detractors, and Satanists alike, including "The Father of Satanism", the "St. Paul of Satanism" and "The Black Pope".

I'm going to go with "showman" and "provocateur." 

Adherents to the Church of Satan don't actually believe in Satan. LaVey was an atheist, and a libertarian who admired Ayn Rand. Like Rand, he was also Jewish. Sammy Davis Jr., who was also Jewish (by choice) also joined the Church of Satan for a while. American pianist Liberace was also a member of the Church of Satan, as was Jayne Mansfield.

Ironically, Anton Lavey died in 1997, at St. Mary's Medical Center in San Francisco...a Catholic hospital.

The Devil in English Fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

The Devil in English Fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

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"GHOSTS are few but devils are plenty," said Cotton Mather, but his saying would need to be inverted to fit present-day English fiction. Now we have ghosts in abundance but devils are scarce. In fact, they bid fair to become extinct in our romances, at least in the form that is easily recognizable. Satan will probably soon be in solution, identified merely as a state of mind. He has been so Burbanked of late, with his daemonic characteristics removed and humanities added that, save for sporadic reversion to type, the old familiar demon is almost a vanished form. The modern mind seems to cling with a new fondness to the ghost but has turned the cold shoulder to the devil, perhaps because many modernists believe more in the human and less in the supernatural —and after all, ghosts are human and devils are not. The demon has disported himself in various forms in literature, from the scarlet fiend of monkish legend, the nimble imp and titanic nature-devil of folk-lore to Milton's epic, majestic Satan, and Goethe's mocking Mephistopheles, passing into allegoric, symbolic, and satiric figures in later fiction. He has been an impressive character in the drama, the epic, the novel, in poetry, and the short story. We have seen him as a loathly, brutish demon in Dante, as a superman, as an intellectual satirist, and as a human being appealing to our sympathy. He has gradually lost his epic qualities and become human. He is not present in literature now to the extent to which he was known in the past, is not so impressive a figure as heretofore, and at times when he does appear his personality is so ambiguously set forth that it requires close literary analysis to prove his presence.

Here the devil will be discussed with reference to his appearances on earth, while in a later division he will be seen in his own home. It would be hard to say with certainty when and where the devil originated, yet he undoubtedly belongs to one of our first families and is said to have been born theologically in Persia about the year 900 B.C. He has appeared under various aliases, as Ahriman of the Zoroastrian system, Pluto in classical mythology, Satan, Beelzebub, Prince of Darkness, and by many other titles. In his Address to the De'il Burns invokes him thus:

"Oh, Thou! whatever title suit thee,—
 Auld Hornie, Satan, Nick or Cloutie!"

He has manifested himself in fiction under diverse names, as Demon, Lucifer, Satan, Mephistopheles, Prince Lucio, The Man in Black, and so forth, but whatever the name he answers to, he is known in every land and has with astonishing adaptability made himself at home in every literature.

The devil has so changed his form and his manner of appearance in later literature that it is hard to identify him as his ancient self. In early stories he was heralded by supernatural thunder and lightning and accompanied by a strong smell of sulphur. He dressed in character costume, sometimes in red, sometimes in black, but always indubitably diabolic. He wore horns, a forked tail, and cloven hoofs and was a generally unprepossessing creature whom anyone could know for a devil. Now his ro1e is not so typical and his garb not so declarative. He wears an evening suit, a scholar's gown, a parson's robe, a hunting coat, with equal ease, and it is sometimes difficult to tell the devil from the hero of a modern story. He has been deodorized and no longer reeks warningly of the Pit.

The mediaeval mind conceived of the devil as a sort of combination of mythologic satyr and religious dragon. It is interesting to note how the pagan devil-myths have been engrafted upon the ideas of Christianity, to fade out very slowly and by degrees. In monkish legends the devil was an energetic person who would hang round a likely soul for years, if need be, on the chance of nabbing him. Many monkish legends have come down to us.

The diabolic element in English folk-lore shows a rich field for study. The devil here as in the monkish legendry appears as an enemy of souls, a tireless tempter. He lies in wait for any unwary utterance, and the least mention of his name, any thoughtless expletive, such as "The devil take me if—" brings instant response from him to clinch the bargain. Yet the devil of rustic folk-lore is of a bucolic dullness, less clever than in any phase of literature, more gullible, more easily imposed on. English folk-lore, especially the Celtic branches, shows the devil as very closely related to nature. He was wont to work off his surplus energy or his wrath by disturbing the landscape, and many stories of his prankish pique have come down to us. If anything vexed him he might stamp so hard upon a plain that the print of his cloven hoof would be imprinted permanently. He was fond of drinking out of pure springs and leaving them cursed with sulphur, and he sometimes showed annoyance by biting a section out of a mountain, Devil's Bit Mountain in Ireland being one of the instances. In general, any peculiarity of nature might be attributed to the activities of Auld Hornie.

The devil has always been a pushing, forward sort of person, so he was not content with being handed round by word of mouth in monkish legend or rustic folk-lore, but must worm his way into literature in general. Since then many ink-pots have been emptied upon him besides the one that Luther hurled against his cloister wall. The devil is seen frequently in the miracle plays, showing grotesquerie, the beginnings of that sardonic humor he is to display in more important works later. In his appearance in literature the devil is largely anthropomorphic. Man creates the devil in his own image, one who is not merely personal but racial as well, reflecting his creator. In monkish tradition an adversary in wait for souls, in rustic folk-lore a rollicking buffoon with waggish pranks, in miracle plays reflecting the mingled seriousness and comic elements of popular beliefs, he mirrors his maker. But it is in the great poems and dramas and stories that we find the more personal aspects of devil-production, and it is these epic and dramatic concepts of the devil that have greatly influenced modern fiction. While the Gothic romance was but lightly touched by the epic supernaturalism, the literature since that time has reflected it more, and the Satanic characters of Dante, Milton, Calderon, Marlowe, and Goethe have cast long shadows over modern fiction. The recent revival of interest in Dante has doubtless had its effect here.

Burns in his _Address to the De'il_ shows his own kindly heart and honest though ofttimes misdirected impulses by suggesting that there is still hope for the devil to repent and trusting that he may do so yet. Mrs. Browning, in her _Drama of Exile_, likewise shows in Lucifer some appeal to our sympathies, reflecting the pitying heart of the writer,—showing a certain kinship to Milton's Satan yet with weakened intellectual power. She makes Gabriel say to him:

                             "Angel of the sin,
Such as thou standest,—pale in the drear light
Which rounds the rebel's work with Maker's wrath—
Thou shalt be an Idea to all souls,
A monumental, melancholy gloom,
Seen down all ages whence to mark despair
And measure out the distances from good."

Byron's devil in _A Vision of Judgment_ is, like Caliban's ideas of Setebos, "altogether such an one" as Byron conceived himself to be. He is a terrible figure, whose

"Fierce and unfathomable thoughts engraved
 Eternal wrath on his immortal face."

He shows diabolical sarcasm when he says, "I've kings enough below, God knows!" And how like Oscar Wilde is the devil he pictures to us in his symbolic story, _The Fisherman and his Soul_. The prince of darkness who appears to the young fisherman that wishes to sell his soul to the devil is "a man dressed in a suit of black velvet cut in Spanish fashion. His proud face was strangely pale, but his lips were like a proud red flower. He seemed weary and was leaning back toying in a listless manner with the pommel of his saddle." When the fisherman unthoughtedly utters a prayer that baffles the fiend for the time, the demon mounts his jennet with the silver harness and rides away, still with the proud, disdainful face, sad with a blase weariness unlike the usual alertness of the devil. He has a sort of Blessed Damozel droop to his figure, and the bored patience of a lone man at an afternoon tea. Wilde shows us some little mocking red devils in another of his stories, and _The Picture of Dorian Grey_ is a concept of diabolism.

Scott in _The Talisman_ puts a story of descent from the Evil One in the mouth of the Saracen, the legend of the spirits of evil who formed a league with the cruel Zohauk, by which he gained a daily sacrifice of blood to feed two hideous serpents that had become a part of himself. One day seven sisters of wonderful beauty are brought, whose loveliness appeals to the immortals. In the midst of supernatural manifestations the earth is rent and seven young men appear. The leader says to the eldest sister:

"I am Cothreb, king of the subterranean world. I and my brethren are of those who, created out of elementary fire, disdained even at the command of Omnipotence, to do homage to a clod of earth because it is called man. Thou mayest have heard of us as cruel, unrelenting, and persecuting. It is false. We are by nature kind and generous, vengeful only when insulted, cruel only when affronted. We are true to those that trust us; and we have heard the invocations of thy father the sage Mithrasp, who wisely worships not only the Origin of Good, but that which is called the Source of Evil. You and your sisters are on the eve of death; but let each give to us one hair from your fair tresses in token of fealty, and we will carry you many miles to a place of safety where you may bid defiance to Zohauk and his ministers."

The maidens accept the offer and become the brides of the spirits of evil.

The devil in Scott's _Wandering Willie's Tale_, also speaks a good word for himself. When the gudesire meets in the woods the stranger who sympathizes with his obvious distress, the unknown offers to help him, saying, "If you will tell me your grief, I am one that, though I have been sair miscaa'd in the world, am the only hand for helping my freends." The gudesire tells his woes and says that he would go to the gates of hell, and farther, to get the receipt due him, upon which the hospitable stranger conducts him to the place mentioned. The canny Scot obtains the document, outwits the devil, and wins his way back to earth unscathed.

One marked aspect of recent devil-fiction is the tendency to gloze over his sins and to humanize him. This is shown to a marked degree in Marie Corelli's sentimental novel, _The Sorrows of Satan_, where she expends much anxious sympathy over the fiend. To Miss Corelli's agitated mind Satan is a much maligned martyr who regretfully tempts mortals and is grieved when they yield to his beguilements. Her perfervid rhetoric pictures him as a charming prince, handsome, wealthy, yet very lonesome, who warns persons in advance that he is not what he seems and that they would do well to avoid him. But the fools rush in crowds to be damned. According to her theory, the devil is attempting to work out his own salvation and could do so save for the weakness of man. He is able to get a notch nearer heaven for every soul that resists his wiles, though in London circles his progress is backward rather than forward. How is Lucifer fallen! To be made a hero of by Marie Corelli must seem to Mephisto life's final indignity! Her characterization of the fiend shows some reminiscence of a hasty reading of Milton, Goethe, and the Byronic Cain.

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The devil has a human as well as daemonic spirit in Israel Zangwill's _They that Walk in Darkness_, where he appears as Satan Maketrig, a red-haired hunchback, with "gigantic marble brow, cold, keen, steely eyes, and handsome, clean-shaven lips." He seems a normal human being in this realistic Ghetto setting, though he bears a nameless sense of evil about with him. In his presence, or as he passes by, all the latent evil in men's souls comes to the surface. He lures the rabbi away from his wife, from God, and from all virtue, yet to see him at the end turn away again in spirit to the good, spurning the tempter whom he recognizes at last as daemonic. There is a human anguish in the eyes of Satan Maketrig, that shows him to be not altogether diabolic, and he seems mournful and appealing in his wild loneliness. His nature is in contrast to that of the fiend in Stanley J. Weyman's _The Man in Black_. Here his cold, sardonic jesting that causes him to play with life and death, so lightly, his diabolic cunning, his knowledge of the human heart and how to torture it, remind us of Iago. The dark shade extends to the skin as well as to the heart in the man in black in Stevenson's _Thrawn Janet_, for he exercises a weird power over his vassal, the old servant, and terrifies even the minister. And _War Letters from a Living Dead Man_, written by Elsa Parker but said to be dictated by a correspondent presumably from somewhere in hell, shows us His Satanic Majesty with grim realism up to date.

The devil appears with mournful, human dignity, yet with superhuman gigantism in Algernon Blackwood's _Secret Worship_, where the lost souls enter into a riot of devil-worship, into which they seek to draw living victims, to damn them body and soul. One victim sees the devil thus:

"At the end of the room where the windows seemed to have disappeared so that he could see the stars, there rose up into view, far against the sky, grand and terrible, the outline of a man. A kind of gray glory enveloped him so that it resembled a steel-cased statue, immense, imposing, horrific in its distant splendor. The gray radiance from its mightily broken visage, august and mournful, beat down upon his soul, pulsing like some dark star with the powers of spiritual evil."

Here, as in many instances elsewhere, the sadness of the diabolic character is emphasized, a definite human element. The Miltonic influence seems evident in such cases.

Kipling has a curious daemonic study in _Bubble Well Road_, a story of a patch of ground filled with devils and ghosts controlled by an evil-minded native priest, while in _Haunted Subalterns_ the imps terrorize young army officers by their malicious mischief.

The allegorical and symbolic studies of diabolism are among the more impressive creations in later fiction, as in Tolstoi's _Ivan, the Fool_, where the demons are responsible for the marshaling of armies, the tyranny of money, and the inverted ideas of the value of service. The appearance of the devil in later stories is more terrible and effective in its variance of type and its secret symbolism than the crude enginery of diabolism in Gothic fiction, as the muscular fiend1 that athletically hurls the man and woman from the mountain top, or the invisible physical strength manifested in _Melmoth, the Wanderer_. The crude violence of these novels is in keeping with the fiction of the time, yet modern stories show a distinct advance, as such instances as J. H. Shorthouse's _Countess Eve_, where the devil appears differently to each tempted soul, embodying with hideous wisdom the form of the sin that that particular soul is most liable to commit. He bears the shape of committed sin, suggesting that evil is so powerful as to have an independent existence of its own, apart from the mind that gave it birth, as the devil appears as evil thought materialized in Fernac Molnar's drama, _The Devil_. Fiona McLeod's strange Gaelic tale, _The Sin-Eater_ introduces demons symbolically. The sin-eater is a person that by an ancient formula can remove the sins from an unburied corpse and let them in turn be swept away from him by the action of the pure air. But if the sin-eater hates the dead man, he has the power to fling the transgressions into the sea, to turn them into demons that pursue and torment the flying soul till Judgment Day.

One aspect of the recent stories of diabolism is the subtleness by which the evil is suggested. The reader feels a miasmatic atmosphere of evil, a smear on the soul, and knows that certain incidents in the action can be accounted for on no other basis than that of daemonic presence, as in Barry Pain's _Moon Madness_, where the princess is moved by a strange irresistible lure to dance alone night after night in the heart of the secret labyrinth to mystic music that the white moon makes. But one night, after she is dizzy and exhausted but impelled to keep on, she feels a hot hand grasp hers; someone whirls her madly round and she knows that she is not dancing alone! She is seen no more of men, and searchers find only the prints of her little dancing slippers in the sand, with the mark of a cloven hoof beside them. The most revolting instances of suggestive diabolism are found in Arthur Machen's stories, where supernatural science opens the way for the devil to enter the human soul, since the biologist by a cunning operation on the brain removes the moral sense, takes away the soul, and leaves a being absolutely diabolized. Worse still is the hideousness of _Seeing the Great God Pan_, where the daemonic character is a composite of the loathsome aspects of Pan and the devil, from which horrible paternity is born a child that embodies all the unspeakable evil in the world.

In pleasant contrast to dreadful stories are the tales of the amusing devils that we find frequently. The comic devil is much older than the comic ghost, as authors showed a levity toward demons long before they treated the specter with disrespect,—one rather wonders why. Clownish devils that appeared in the miracle plays prepared the way for the humorous and satiric treatment of the Elizabethan drama and late fiction. The liturgical imps were usually funny' whether their authors intended them as such or not, but the devils in fiction are quite conscious of their own wit, in fact, are rather conceited about it. Poe shows us several amusing demons who display his curious satiric humor,—for instance, the old gentleman in _Never Bet the Devil your Head_. When Toby Dammit makes his rash assertion, he beholds

"the figure of a little lame old gentleman of venerable aspect. Nothing could be more reverend than his whole appearance; for he not only had on a full suit of black, but his shirt was perfectly clean and the collar turned down very neatly over a white cravat, while his hair was parted in front like a girl's. His hands were clasped pensively over his stomach, and his two eyes were carefully rolled up into the top of his head."

This clerical personage who reminds us of the devil in _Peer Gynt_, who also appears as a parson, claims the better's head and neatly carries it off. This is a modern version of an incident similar to Chaucer's _Friar's Tale_, where the devil claimed whatever was offered him in sincerity. The combination of humor and mystery in Washington living's _The Devil and Tom Walker_ shows the black woodsman in an amusing though terrifying aspect, as he claims the keeping of the contracts made with him by Tom and his miserly wife. When Tom goes to search for his spouse in the woods, he fails to find her.

"She had probably attempted to deal with the black man as she had been accustomed to deal with her husband; but though the female scold is generally considered a match for the devil, yet in this instance she appears to have had the worst of it. She must have died game, however, for it is said Tom noticed many prints of cloven feet deeply stamped about the tree, and found handsful of hair that looked as if they had been plucked from the coarse shock of the black woodsman. Tom knew his wife's prowess by experience. He shrugged his shoulders as he looked at the fierce signs of clapper-clawing. 'Egad!' he said to himself, 'Old Scratch must have had a tough time of it!'"

The devil amuses himself in various ways, as is seen by the antics of the mysterious stranger in Poe's _The Devil in the Belfry_, who comes curvetting into the old Dutch village with his audacious and sinister face and curious costume, to upset the sacred time of the place. The visitant in _Bon Bon_ is likewise queer as to dress and habits. He wears garments in the style of a century before, having a queue but no shirt, a cravat with an ecclesiastic suggestion, also a stylus and black book. His facial expression is such as would have struck Uriah Heap dumb with envy, and the hint of hoofs and a forked tail is cleverly given though not obtruded. The most remarkable feature of his appearance, however, is that he has no eyes, simply a dead level of flesh. He declares that he eats souls and prefers to buy them alive to insure freshness. He has a taste for philosophers, when they are not too tough.

The satiric devil, like the satiric ghost, is seen in modern fiction. Eugene Field has a story of a demon who seems sympathetic, weeping large, gummy tears at hearing a mortal's woes, and signing the conventional contract on a piece of asbestos paper. He agrees to do everything the man wishes, for a certain term of years, in return for which he is to get the soul. If the devil forfeits the contract, he loses not only that victim but the souls of two thousand already in his clutches. The man shrewdly demands trying things of him, but the demon is game, building and endowing churches, carrying-on philanthropic and reform work without complaint, but balking when the man asks him to close the saloons on Sunday. Rather than do that, he releases the two thousand and one souls and flies away twitching his tail in wrath.

The most recent, as perhaps the most striking, instance of the satiric devil is in Mark Twain's posthumous novel, _The Mysterious Stranger_. A youth, charming, courtly, and handsome appears in a medieval village, confessing to two boys that he is Satan, though not the original of that name, but his nephew and namesake. He insists that he is an unfallen angel, since his uncle is the only member of his family that has sinned. Satan reads the thoughts of mortals, kindles fire in his pipe by breathing on it, supplies money and other desirable things by mere suggestion, is invisible when he wills it so, and is generally a gifted being. This perennial boy—only sixteen thousand years old—makes a charming companion. He says to Marget that his papa is in shattered health and has no property to speak of,—in fact, none of any earthly value,— but he has an uncle in business down in the tropics, who is very well off, and has a monopoly, and it is from this uncle that he drew his support. Marget expresses the hope that her uncle and his would meet some day, and Satan says he hoped so, too. "May be they will," says Marget. "Does your uncle travel much?"

"Oh, yes, he goes all about,—he has business everywhere."

The book is full of this oblique humor, satirizing earth, heaven, and hell. The stranger by his comments on theological creeds satirizes religion, and Satan is an intended parody of God. He sneers at man's "mongrel moral sense," which tells him the distinction between good and evil, insisting that he should have no choice, that the right to choose makes him inevitably choose the wrong. He makes little figures out of clay and gives them life, only to destroy them with casual ruthlessness a little later and send them to hell. In answer to the old servant's faith in God, when she says that He will care for her and her mistress, since "not a sparrow falleth to the ground without His Knowledge," he sneers, "But it falls, just the same! What's the good of seeing it fall?" He is a new diabolic figure, yet showing the composite traits of the old, the daemonic wisdom and sarcasm, the superhuman magnetism to draw men to him, and the human qualities of geniality, sympathy, and boyish charm.

One of the most significant and frequent motifs of the diabolic in literature is that of the barter of the human soul for the devil's gift of some earthly boon, long life or wealth or power, or wisdom, or gratification of the senses. It is a theme of unusual power,—what could be greater than the struggle over one's own immortal soul?—and well might the great minds of the world engage themselves with it. Yet that theme is but little apparent in later stories. We have no such character in recent literature that can compare with Marlowe's Dr. Faustus or Goethe's Mephistopheles or Calderon's wonder-working magician. Hawthorne's Septimius Felton makes a bargain with the devil to secure the elixir of life, there is a legend in Hardy's _Tess of the D' Urbervilles_ of a man that sold himself to the minister of evil, and the incident occurs in various stories of witchcraft, yet with waning power and less frequence. The most significant recent use of it is in W. B. Yeats's drama. This is a drama of Ireland, where the peasants have been driven by famine to barter their souls to the devil to buy their children food, but their Countess sells her own soul to the demon that they may save theirs. This vicarious sacrifice adds a new poignancy to the situation and Yeats has treated it with power. This is the only recent appearance of the devil on the stage for he has practically disappeared from English drama, where he was once so prominent. The demon was a familiar and leading figure on the miracle and Elizabethan stage, but, like the ghost, he shows more vitality now in fiction. The devil is an older figure in English drama than is the ghost, but he seems to have played out.

The analysis and representation of the devil as a character in literature have covered a great range, from the bestiality of Dante's Demon in the _Inferno_ to Milton's mighty angel in ruins, with all sorts of variations between, from the sneering cynicism of Goethe's Mephisto to the pinchbeck diabolism of Marie Corelli's sorrowful Satan, and the merry humor and blasphemous satire of Mark Twain's mysterious stranger. We note an especial influence of Goethe's Mephistopheles in the satiric studies of the demon, an echo of his diabolic climax when in answer to Faust's outcry over Margaret's downfall and death, he says, "She is not the first!" One hears echoing through all literature Man Friday's unanswerable question, "Why not God kill debbil?" The uses of evil in God's eternal scheme, the soul's free choice yet pitiful weakness, are sounded again and again. The great diabolic figures, in their essential humanity, their intellectual dignity, their sad introspection, their pitiless testing of the human soul to its predestined fall, are terrible allegorical images of the evil in man himself, or concepts of social sins, as in _Ivan, the Fool_. The devils of the great writers, reflecting the time, the racial characteristics, the personal natures of their creators, are deeply symbolic. Each man creates the devil that he can understand, that represents him, for, as Amiel says, we can comprehend nothing of which we have not the beginnings in ourselves. As each man sees a different Hamlet, so each one has his own devil, or is his own devil. This is illustrated by the figure in Julian Hawthorne's _Lovers in Heaven_, where the dead man's spirit meets the devil in the after life,—who is his own image, his daemonic double. Some have one great fiend, while others keep packs of little, snarling imps of darkness. A study of comparative diabolics is illuminating and might be useful to us all.

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Contents (created on a Windows computer):

Three Inquiries Into the Scriptural Doctrine Concerning the Devil
by Walter Balfour 1842

The biography of Satan, or, A historical exposition of the devil and his fiery dominions : disclosing the oriental origin of the belief in a devil and future endless punishment; also, an explanation of the pagan origin of the scriptural terms, bottomless pit, lake of fire and brimstone, chains of darkness, casting out devils, worm that never dieth, etc.  by Kersey Graves 1924

Satan Absolved: A Victorian Mystery by Wilfrid Scawen Blunt - 1899

THE POSSESSED (The Devils) A NOVEL IN THREE PARTS BY FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY

The Devil is an Ass (1905) Ben Johnson

Lucifer: A Theological Tragedy by George Santayana 1899

Studies in Occultism: A Series of Reprints from the Writings of H. P. Blavatsky 1910

The case of Saul, Shewing that his Disorder was a Real Spiritual Possession by Granville Sharp 1807

Gods and Devils of Mankind by Frank Stockton Dobbins 1897

Infernal Conference: Or, Dialogues of Devils by The Listener 1835

Demonology - The Scripture Doctrine of Devils 1856 by Joseph Young

Elizabethan Demonology: An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in the Existence of Devils by Thomas Spaulding 1880

All about Devils: Or, An Inquiry as to Whether Modern Spiritualism and Other Great Reforms Emanate from his Satanic Majesty by Moses Hull 1902

Satan's diary by L Andreyev 1920

Satan, his Origin, Work, and destiny by Carlyle Boynton Haynes 1920 (many illustrations)

The Devil: his Origin, Greatness, and Decadence by Albert Reville 1877

Devil Stories - an Anthology by M Rudwin 1921 (The devil in a nunnery, The marriage of the devil, The devil and Tom Walker, From the memoirs of Satan, The devil's wager, The printer's devil, The devil's mother-in-law, The three low masses, Devil-puzzlers, The devil's round, The demon pope, Madam Lucifer, Lucifer, The Devil, The devil and the old man)

The New Testament of Our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as Revised and Corrected by The Spirits, by Leonard Thorn 1861

Satan as a Moral Philosopher by CS Henry 1877

The Bible history of Satan. Is he a fallen angel? 1858

Description of Satan's court -  Satan makes a speech, giving the result of 6000 years' study of man; exults at his success by WB Harris 1884

History of the Fallen Angels of the Scriptures -Proofs of the being of Satan and of evil spirits by Josiah Priest 1839

An Attempt to Prove that the Opinion Concerning the Devil as a Fallen Angel hath No Real Foundation in Scripture by William Ashdowne 1794

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Babylonian Influence on the Bible and Popular Beliefs - A Study of Genesis 1 and 2 by Abram Smythe Palmer 1897

Devil Worship - the Sacred Books and Traditions of the Yezidiz by Joseph Isya 1919

The God of this World - The Devil in history by Hollis Read 1875

Luciferianism or Satanism in English Freemasonry Volume 1 by Leon Fouquet 1898

Luciferianism or Satanism in English Freemasonry Volume 2 by Leon Fouquet 1898

The Autobiography of Satan, edited by John Beard 1872

The Believer's Victory over Satan's Devices by William Parson 1876

Diabolology - The person and kingdom of Satan by Ed Jewett 1889

The Fall of Lucifer - The Origin of Evil by ET Smets 1896

Satan's Guile and Satan's Wiles by E Lloyd Jones 1882

The History of the Devil by Daniel Defoe by 1727

The Life and Labors of the Devil by TT Johnson 1892

Foot Prints of Satan: Pope and Jesuits Against Bible by JG White 1874

The Passing of Satan, Death and Hell by Andrew Rogers 1903

The Book of the Damned by Charles Fort 1919

The Book of Adam and Eve: Also Called the Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan by Solomon Caesar Malan 1882

Resuscitated - a Dream or Vision of the existence after Death. The soul before Satan and Lucifer, or the modernized Hades. Discourse of Lucifer on national, social, religious and scientific topics, principally about the United States of America by 1883

Devil reveals Himself - The Devil in his own defence by Richard Orme 1894

The Secret Doctrine; the Synthesis of Science, Religion and Philosophy by Helen Blavatsky Volume 2 1888 (has sections on "Satanic Myths" and "Holy Satan"

The Origin of Sin, and Dotted words in the Hebrew Bible by E Gibbes 1893

The Origin of Sin and its Relations to God and the Universe by E Cook 1899

Spiritism, the Modern Satanism by Thomas Francis Coakley 1920

Modern Diabolism commonly called Modern Spiritualism by MJ Williamson 1873

La Bas (DOWN THERE. also known as The Damned) by Joris-Karl Huysmans (Huysmans' most famous work, Là-Bas deals with the subject of Satanism in contemporary France, and the novel stirred a certain amount of controversy on its first appearance.)

The Satanism of Huysmans, article in The Open Court, 1920

Proofs of Spirit Forces by G Henslow 1920

Proofs of the Spirit World by Agnes Gray 1920

Devils, Drugs, and Doctors - the story of the Science of Healing from Medicine Men to Doctor by Howard Haggard 1913
The Devil Worshipper by Frederick A. Ray 1908

Primitive Christianity and Its Corruptions: Discourses by Adin Ballou - 1870
"What, then, is there unreasonable, or incredible, in
the primitive Christian doctrine concerning demons,
a prince of demons, possession, and exorcism?
It is felt and said that this entire demonology is
inherently repulsive and abhorrent to the moral
reason, as well as derogatory to the character of a
perfectly good, wise, and powerful God. Answer.
Why is it any more so than the existence and wickedness
of similar evil beings in this mortal state?"

Satan: His Personality, Power and Overthrow
by Edward McKendree Bounds 1922

The Devil in Britain and America by John Ashton 1896
(Purports to have a "facsimile of the only known specimen of the devil's handwriting)

The History of the Devil and the Idea of Evil
by Paul Carus - 1899

War with Devils: Ministration Of, and Communion with Angels
by Isaac Ambrose 1769

Demoniality; Or, Incubi and Succubi
by Ludovico Maria Sinistrari  1879

A View of the Scripture Revelations Respecting Good and Evil Angels
by Richard Whately - Spirits - 1856

THE DEVIL'S DICTIONARY by AMBROSE BIERCE

The Phantom World: Or, The Philosophy of Spirits, Apparitions
by Augustin Calmet 1850 (first 361 pages only)

Letters to the Rev. William E. Channing, D.D., on the Existence and Agency of Fallen Spirits
by Canonicus, William Ellery Channing 1828

Principalities and Powers in Heavenly Places
by Charlotte Elizabeth 1848

The Existence of Evil Spirits Proved
by Walter Scott  1843

An Essay on Evil Spirits; Or, Reasons to Prove Their Existence
by William Carlisle 1825

Elizabethan Demonology: An Essay in Illustration of the Belief in Devils
by Thomas Alfred Spalding 1880 (Page x is damaged)

Satans Invisible World Discovered
by George Sinclair 1872

Demon Possession and Allied Themes: Being an Inductive Study of Phenomena of our own Times
by John Livingston Nevius 1896

The Pedigree of the Devil by Frederic Thomas Hall 1883

The Holy Spirit and Other Spirits
by Daniel Otis Teasley 1904 (missing several pages)

An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts and Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions
by James Thacher 1831

A Safe View of Spiritism for Catholics
by Joseph C. Sasia 1920

Daemonologia Sacra: Or, A Treatise of Satan's Temptations by Richard Gilpin, Alexander Balloch Grosart - 1867 - 470 pages

Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway - 1879

Satan In Society  by Nicholas Francis Cooke M.D., L.L.D 1890
Discusses how Satan is prevalent in Society due to Infidels, Onanists (masturbators) and Abortions...and all this in 1890.

SATAN By LEWIS SPERRY CHAFER 1909 (searchable pdf)
Contents
Foreword, by Dr. C. I. Scofield
   I. The Career of Satan
  II. The Ages
 III. The Course of This Age
  IV. This Age and the Satanic System
   V. The Satanic Host
  VI. Satan's Motive
 VII. Satan's Methods
VIII. The Man of Sin
  IX. The Fatal Omission
   X. Modern Devices
  XI. The Believer's Present Position
 XII. The Believer's Present Victory

THE TRUE LEGEND OF ST. DUNSTAN AND THE DEVIL (searchable pdf)
Showing How the Horse-Shoe Came to Be a Charm against Witchcraft by EDWARD G. FLIGHT.
1871

A STORY OF SEVEN DEVILS by Frank R. Stockton (searchable pdf)

THE DEVIL AND TOM WALKER by Washington Irving (searchable pdf)

The Witchcraft Delusion in Colonial Connecticut, 1647-1697 by John Metcalf Taylor - 1908 - 170 page

Salem Witchcraft: With an Account of Salem Village, and a History of Opinion of Witchcraft Kindred Subjects by Charles Wentworth Upham - 1867

The Witchcraft Delusion in New England: Its Rise, Progress, and Termination by Cotton Mather, Robert Calef - 1866

Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft by Walter Scott, Henry Morley - 1898 - 310 pages

Narratives of the Witchcraft Cases, 1648-1706 by George Lincoln Burr - 1914 - 460 pages

The Psychology of the Salem Witchcraft Excitement of 1692 by George Miller Beard - 1882 - 109 pages

Irish Witchcraft and Demonology by St. John Drelincourt Seymour - 1913 - 245 pages

The Attitude of the Catholic Church Towards Witchcraft and the Allied Practises by Antoinette Marie Pratt - 1915 - 130 pages

The Superstitions of Witchcraft by Howard Williams - 270 pages

A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718 by Wallace Notestein - 1911 - 435 pages

An History of Magic, Witchcraft, and Animal Magnetism by John C. Colquhoun - 1851

A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight by David Webster - 1820 - 180 pages

Cotton Mather and Salem Witchcraft by William Frederick Poole - 1869
 
Hypnotism, Mesmerism and the New Witchcraft by Ernest Abraham Hart - 1896 - 208 pages

Fallacy of Ghosts, Dreams, and Omens: With Stories of Witchcraft and Monomania by Charles Ollier - 1848 - 245 pages

Mysteries, Or, Glimpses of the Supernatural, Containing Accounts by Charles Wyllys Elliott - 1852 - 265 pages

Faith-healing: Christian Science and Kindred Phenomena - Page 218
by James Monroe Buckley- 1892 - 303 pages DOES THE BIBLE TEACH THE REALITY OF WITCHCRAFT?

Demonology and Devil-lore by Moncure Daniel Conway - 1879

The Devils and Evil Spirits of Babylonia: Being Babylonian and Assyrian Incantations against the Demons Ghouls Vampires Hobgoblins Ghosts and Kindred Evil Spirits which Attack Mankind by Reginald Campbell Thompson - 1903

War with Devils: Ministration Of, and Communion with Angels by Isaac Ambrose - 1769 - 361 pages

Spirit Rapping Unveiled!: An Exposé of the Origin, History, Theology
by Hiram Mattison - 1855 - 230 pages
Witches and Wizards of the Bible—Origin of Witchcraft—Witches ani Wizards—Necromancers
and Soothsayers—Astrologers and Magicians— Modern Fortune-tellers

Lives of the Necromancers: Or, An Account of the Most Eminent Persons
by William Godwin - 1834 - 460 pages
"THE oldest and most authentic record from which we can derive our ideas on the
subject of necromancy and witchcraft, unquestionably is the Bible."

An Essay on Demonology, Ghosts and Apparitions, and Popular Superstitions by James Thacher - 1831 - 230 pages

Critical Studies in St. Luke's Gospel: Its Demonology and Ebionitism
by Colin Campbell - 1891 - 310 pages

Antiquity Unveiled: Ancient Voices from the the Spirit Realms Disclose the Most Startling Revelations Proving Christianity to be of Heathen Origin by Jonathan Roberts - 1894 - 600 pages

The Bible Devil, a Modern Interpretation By Henry Richard Bender 1917

The Autobiography of Satan by John Beard 1872

The Biography of Satan by Kersey Graves

The Dragon, Image, and Demon by Hampden Du Bose 1886

The Evil eye, Thanatology, and other Essays by Roswell Park 1912

The worship of the serpent by John B Deane 1833

Serpent Worship, from the Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics by James Hastings 1922

A Personal Devil, article in The Unitarian review 1890

The Political History of the devil by Daniel Defoe 1726

The Origin, the nature, the kingdom, the works, and the destiny of the Devil by WA Jarrel 1892

A Dictionary of Miracles, imitative, realistic, and dogmatic by Ebenezer C Brewer 1884 (the devil(s) is mentioned nearly 900 times, Satan over 100 times)

Devil Tales by Virginia Frazer Boyle 1900

The Reign of the Evil One by CF Ramuz 1922

Does the Lord's Prayer Mention the Devil, article in Bibliotheca sacra 1891

Christ and other masters (has a section called "Doctrine of the Evil One) by Charles Hardwick 1859

Priests and philosophers (Personality of the Evil One) by William Gresley 1873

Legends of Old Testament characters by S. Baring-Gould 1871

Semitic Magic by RC Thompson 1908

Spiritism and the cult of the dead in antiquity by Lewis Bayles Paton - 1921

The Classic of Spiritism by Lucy Milburn 1922

The Sacred Book of Death: Hindu Spiritism, Soul Transition and Soul Reincarnation 1905 by DR LW Delaurance

Spiritism - the origin of all religions by JP Dameron 1885

The Serpent in Genesis, article in the Unitarian Review 1891

The Rise and Progress of the Serpent from the Garden of Eden to the Present by Mary M. Dyer 1847 (Shakerism)

The Serpent of Eden: a philological and critical essay on the text of Genesis 3 and its various interpretations by Jose P. Val d'Eremao 1888

The World's Sixteen Crucified Saviors by Kersey Graves (Chapter 3 - Prophecies by the Figure of a Serpent) 1919

The Devil Satan said to be of Persian Origin, article in Current opinion 1888

The Existence and Fall of Satan and his Angels, article in the Methodist magazine and quarterly review 1838

The Devil by Charles Carroll Everett, article in The Thinker 1895

Plus you get the following books on the Devil in Literature

The Supernatural in Modern English Fiction by Dorothy Scarborough 1917

The Supernatural in Romantic Fiction by Edward Yardley 1880

A Drama of Exile and other poems, Volume 1, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1845

A Drama of Exile and other poems, Volume 2, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning 1845

A House of Pomegranates by Oscar Wilde (The Fisherman and his Soul) 1918

The Talisman by Sir Walter Scott 1876

They that Walk in Darkness by Israel Zangwill 1899 (the devil here appears as Satan Mekatrig)

The Man in Black by Stanley Weyman 1894

Great short stories (Ghost Stories, contains "Thrawn Janet" by RL Stevenson) 1909

War Letters from the Living Dead Man by Elsa Barker 1915

Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 1 by Charles Robert Maturin 1820 (uncle of Jane Wilde, Oscar Wilde's mother)

Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 2 by Charles Robert Maturin 1820

Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 3 by Charles Robert Maturin 1820

Melmoth the Wanderer, Volume 4 by Charles Robert Maturin 1820 (The central character, Melmoth, is a scholar who sells his soul to the devil in exchange for 150 extra years of life; he spends that time searching for someone who will take over the pact for him.)

The Countess Eve by JH Shorthouse 1893 (here the devil appears differently to each tempted soul)

The Devil by Ferenc Molnár, 1908

The Sin-Eater by Fiona Macleod 1895

The Great God Pan by Arthur Machen 1894 (Stephen King calls this book "maybe the best [horror] story in the English language)

The House of Souls by Arthur Machen 1906

The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 1 (1800's)

The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 2 (The Devil in the Belfry) (1800's)

The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 3 (Never Bet the Devil Your Head) (1800's)

The Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, Volume 3 (1800's)

Eugene Field, an auto-analysis - How one friar met the Devil and two pursued him 1901

The Holy Cross and Other Tales by Eugene Field (Daniel and the Devil) 1899

Septimius Felton by Nathaniel Hawthorne 1871 (Felton makes a deal with the devil to secure the elixir of life)

Lovers in heaven by Julian Hawthorne 1905 (Dead man meets the devil in the afterlife and find the devil looks like him)

Heroes and Heroines of Fiction - Famous characters and famous names in novels, romances, poems and dramas, classified, analyzed and criticised, with supplementary citations from the best authorities by William S Walsh 1914

Rídan the Devil by Louise Becke 1899

Seven legends by Gottfried Keller 1911 (The Virgin and the devil)

The Revolt of the Angels by Anatole France 1914 (full of metaphysical mockery on the one hand and a portrayal of Satan as seeker of mysteries on the other.)

The Home of the Seven Devils by Horace Newte 1913

The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christoper Marlowe 1897

Vondel's Lucifer, by Joost von den Vondel 1604

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell by William Blake 1906

The Private Memoirs and Confessions of a Justified Sinner by James Hogg 1824 (simultaneously infers a pseudo-Christian world of angels, devils, and demonic possession.)

Devil Stories - an Anthology by MJ Rudwin 1921 [19 tales] (Contains: The Devil in a Nunnery by F.O. Mann. Belphagor; or, The marriage of the devil by N. Machiavelli. The Devil and Tom Walker by W. Irving. From the memoirs of Satan by W. Hauff. St. John's eve by N.V. Gógol. The Devil's wager by W.M. Thackeray. The Painter's bargain by W.M. Thackeray. Bon-Bon by E.A. Poe. The Printer's devil. The Devil's mother-in-law by Fernan Caballero. The Generous Gambler by Charles Baudelaire. The 3 Low Masses by A. Duadet. Devil-Puzzlers by F. Perkins. The Devil's Round by Charles Deulin. The Legend of Mont St. Michel by Guy de Maupassant. The Demon Pope by Richard Garnett. Madam Lucifer by Richard Garnett. Lucifer by Anatole France. The Devil by Maxim Gorky. The Devil and the Old Man by John Masefield.

Pierce Penniless's supplication to the Devil by Thomas Nashe 1592

The Three Devils: Luther's, Milton's, and Goethe's by David Masson 1874

Paradise Lost by John Milton 1910

The Temptation of Saint Anthony by Gustave Flaubert 1910

The Sorrows of Satan by Marie Corelli 1896

Faust by Goethe 1908

Mr. Faust by Arthur Ficke

Faust's Death by Carl Moelling 1865

The Faust Legend And Goethes faust by HB Cotterill 1912

Flowers of Evil by Charles Baudelaire 1909

Asmodeus at Large by Edward Bulwer Lytton 1833

The Wonderful Visit by HG Wells 1914

Dante's Inferno 1888

The Devil's Case by RW Buchanan 1896

Satanism and Witchcraft, alternatively titled La Sorcière: The Witch in the Middle Ages by Jules Michelet 1863

The Tragedy of Man by Imre Madách 1908 (famous Hungarian play featuring Adam, Eve and Lucifer)

The Devil's Disciple by George Bernard Shaw 1901

The Mysterious Stranger by Mark Twain 1922
 gdixierose