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Legends 25: Cursed Literature (ad-free)
🕑 Added 2024-04-15 04:01:00 +0000 UTCCursed literature and haunted tomes fill a category of folklore that never gets enough love. This tour through the some of history’s most deadly books is sure to help you find a few new favorites.
Narrated and produced by Aaron Mahnke, with writing by Harry Marks and research by Cassandra de Alba.
Sources:
- Aanmoen, Oskar. “The mysterious fire which forced a royal family to flee into the night.” Royal Central. October 30, 2023. https://royalcentral.co.uk/features/the-mysterious-fire-which-forced-a-royal-family-to-flee-into-the-night-194186
- “About the Boston Athenæum.” Boston Athenæum. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://bostonathenaeum.org/about
- Allen, James, and Charles Lincoln. Narrative of the life of James Allen, alias George Walton, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the highwayman : being his death-bed confession, to the warden of the Massachusetts state prison (Harrington & Co., 1937).
- Alvis, Alexandra K. “If Books Could Kill: A Deadly Secret in the Cullman Library.” Unbound. August 20, 2018. https://blog.library.si.edu/blog/2018/08/20/if-books-could-kill-a-deadly-secret-in-the-cullman-library
- “The Anthropodermic Book Project.” The Anthropodermic Book Project. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://anthropodermicbooks.org
- Bien, Laura. “In the Archives: Poison Pages.” Ann Arbor Chronicle. May 3, 2012. https://annarborchronicle.com/2012/05/03/in-the-archives-poison-pages
- Blakemore, Erin. “Step Into the Vatican’s Secret Archives.” History. March 18, 2021. https://www.history.com/news/step-into-the-vaticans-secret-archives
- “Boston Athenaeum Skin Book.” Atlas Obscura. June 15, 2010. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/boston-athenaeum-skin-book
- “The Codex Gigas.” ArcGIS StoryMaps. March 21, 2022. https://storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/8a91d7f10fde4d49b48412eb4e5728c3
- “The Codex Gigas.” National Library of Sweden. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.kb.se/codex-gigas/eng
- “The Codex Gigas (AKA The Devil’s Bible).” Binghamton University Library News. October 30, 2017. https://libnews.binghamton.edu/specialcollections/2017/10/30/the-codex-gigas-aka-the-devils-bible
- “The Devil’s Bible.” The Truth Behind. Season 1, Episode 6. Aired December 14, 2008.
- Ehrengardt, Thibault. “Who Skinned James Allen? The ‘Skin Book.’” Rare Book Hub. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.rarebookhub.com/articles/2157/print?page_id=4195
- Feldkamp, Katherine. “Death on the doorstep: arsenic in Victorian wallpaper.” St. Louis Art Museum. September 24, 2020. https://www.slam.org/blog/arsenic-in-victorian-wallpaper
- “Film about the Codex Gigas.” National Library of Sweden. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/film-about-the-codex-gigas.html
- Harlitz-Kern, Erika. “10 Things You Should Know About The Devil’s Bible (Or Codex Gigas).” Book Riot. July 15, 2015. https://bookriot.com/10-things-know-devils-bible
- Hawksley, Lucinda. Bitten By Witch Fever: Wallpaper & Arsenic in the Nineteenth-Century Home (Thames & Hudson, 2016).
- “History of the Codex Gigas.” National Library of Sweden. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/history-of-the-codex-gigas.html
- Jennings, Jan. “Controlling Passion: The Turn-of-the-Century Wallpaper Dilemma.” Winterthur Portfolio 31(4), Winter 1996: pp. 243-264.
- Kedzie, Robert Clark. Shadows from the walls of death: facts and inferences prefacing a book of specimens of arsenical wall papers (W.S. George, 1874).
- M., M. “That Book Bound in Human Skin.” In More Books: The Bulletin of the Boston Public Library, Sixth Series, Volume XIX (Trustees of the Boston Public Library, 1944).
- “Magic and scribblings.” National Library of Sweden. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/content-of-the-codex-gigas/magic-and-scribblings.html
- Margaritoff, Marco. “The Story Of The Chronovisor, The Rumored Vatican Invention That Allows You To See The Past.” All That’s Interesting. August 15, 2023. https://allthatsinteresting.com/chronovisor
- Meier, Allison C. “Some Books Can Kill.” JSTOR Daily. September 3, 2018. https://daily.jstor.org/some-books-can-kill
- Milligan, Mark. “Codex Gigas – ‘The Devils Bible.’” Heritage Daily. October 11, 2022. https://www.heritagedaily.com/2022/10/codex-gigas-the-devils-bible/144954
- Morton, Ella. “Object of Intrigue: The Devil’s Bible.” Atlas Obscura. July 7, 2015. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/object-of-intrigue-the-devil-s-bible
- “Mystical Objects That the Vatican Might Be Hiding.” Sideprojects. November 20, 2021. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HT32MH8eEoU
- “Narrative of the life of James Allen, alias George Walton, alias Jonas Pierce, alias James H. York, alias Burley Grove, the highwayman : being his death-bed confession, to the warden of the Massachusetts State Prison [i.e. Charles Lincoln, Jr.].” Boston Athenæum Athena Online Catalog, https://catalog.bostonathenaeum.org/vwebv/holdingsInfo?bibId=353244
- Navarro, Hector. “The Curse of the Codex Gigas AKA The Devil’s Bible.” Factschology. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://factschology.com/mmm-podcast-articles/devils-bible-codex-gigas
- Neuman, Scott. “Pope Francis Decrees Name Change For Vatican Secret Archive.” NPR. October 29, 2019. https://www.npr.org/2019/10/29/774314852/pope-francis-decrees-name-change-for-vatican-secret-archive
- “Police Court.” Boston Post. January 17, 1934. https://www.newspapers.com/image/57565790
- Rosenbloom, Megan. Dark Archives: A Librarian's Investigation into the Science and History of Books Bound in Human Skin (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020).
- “Secrets of Vatican | 13 Fascinating Theories About the Vatican.” The Vatican Tickets & Tours. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.thevaticantickets.com/vatican-secrets
- Taggart, Emma. “The History of the Color Green: From a Poisonous Pigment to a Symbol of Environmentalism.” My Modern Met. June 16, 2020. https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-the-color-green
- “Toxicological Profile for Arsenic.” Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. August 2007. https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/ToxProfiles/tp2.pdf
- “An unknown scribe.” National Library of Sweden. Accessed December 22, 2023. https://www.kb.se/in-english/the-codex-gigas/history-of-the-codex-gigas/an-unknown-scribe.html
- “Visiting the Codex Gigas (Devil's Bible) at the National Library of Sweden.” Strong Sense of Place. April 22, 2020. https://strongsenseofplace.com/2020/04/22/visiting-the-codex-gigas-devils-bible-at-national-library-of-sweden
- Vucic, Marija. “Codex Gigas: Myths Surrounding the Medieval Manuscript.” The Collector. October 5, 2021. https://www.thecollector.com/codex-gigas-medieval-manuscript
- Willey, David. “Vatican archive yields Templar secrets.” BBC News. October 15, 2007. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7044741.stm
- “The World's Most Secure Buildings: The Vatican Secret Archives.” Identiv. March 1, 2021. https://www.identiv.com/resources/blog/the-worlds-most-secure-buildings-the-vatican-secret-archives
- Zawacki, Alexander J. “How a Library Handles a Rare and Deadly Book of Wallpaper Samples.” Atlas Obscura. January 23, 2018. https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/shadows-from-the-walls-of-death-book
