"If we would know man in all his subtleties, we must deviate into the world of miracles and sorcery . . .

"To know the things that are not, and cannot be, but have been imagined and believed, is the most curious chapter in the annals of man. To observe the actual results of these imaginary phenomena, and the crimes and cruelties they have caused us to commit, is one of the most instructive studies in which we can possibly be engaged!"

So wrote William Godwin in 1834, in bringing together an amazing collection of historical accounts and philosophical perspectives on "the acts of sorcery and witchcraft which have existed in human society." Ranging from Simon Magus and the Sorceror Elymas to Tullus Hostilius and Sertorius, and from the Greece of Empedocles to the Dark Ages of Europe, Lives of the Necromancers gives an even-handed account of the place of magic in the kingdoms and empires of the past.