Not only the first book by Lefranc, but the first to accuse of a Masonic conspiracy behind the French Revolution, The Veil Lifted for the Curious is of enormous historical importance. The book pre-dated Augustin Barruel's Memoirs Illustrating the History of Jacobinism by six years; the latter became a sensation, in parallel with John Robison's Proofs of a Conspiracy. Both were widely available in the English speaking world, the former because it was promptly translated, the latter because the author was a Scotsman. Lefranc's pioneering volume, however, remained untranslated for 231 years. In 2022 we can make it available in English for the very first time. Lefranc traces the origins of Freemasonry, and claims that, even with the Christianity-inflected Rectified Scottish Rite, the ultimate aim was the destruction of the Christian religion-its replacement by a secular fiction concocted by the Freemasons, following their rationalist ideology. He finds proof by lifting the veil from the dark, mysterious, and macabre initiation rituals conducted in the secrecy of the lodges, and the tremendous oaths of loyalty extracted from candidates seeking to join the brotherhood and rise through its ranks. Just as importantly, he traces the astonishing parallels between the arrangements of Masonic lodges and those of the National Assembly, arguing that the latter had derived directly from the former. Lefranc denounces the revolutionaries and the conspirators alike, whom, having promised liberty and equality, made of France a terrifying abattoir, where some citizens were more equal than others, the church was despoiled of its property, the roads made unsafe, violent ideologues forced their beliefs both in the capital and in the provinces, and more restrictions were imposed on travellers than under the ancient régime.

The Veil Lifted for the Curious, or The Secret of the French Revolution Revealed with the Aid of Freemasonry

History

Lefranc, Jacques Francois

Europe

Spradabach Publishing

Written while Lombroso was professor of forensic medicine at the University of Turin, L'Uomo delinquente (Criminal Man) set out to conduct an anthropological study of its subject. The premise was that the criminal is born and could be identified from congenital traits. By learning to recognise them, and by developing a detailed system of classification, the aim was better to understand the criminal so as to optimise prevention, reform, or containment. The author leaves no stone unturned, examining every type and level of criminal, recording every measurable characteristic, be it physical, physiological, or psychological. Although subsequently subject to criticism, and now long deprecated, the work was enormously influential in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, as both a pioneering and sincere effort to understand the origins and sources of crime. The work went through five Italian editions, in which Lombroso continued to expand and refine his theory. However, because of its length, it was difficult to get the book translated, so no English edition existed until after the author's death. First published in 1911, the present text is a summary prepared for the Anglo-American market by his daughter, Gina, while her father still lived, and it is in this form that it became known in the English speaking world. Its influence would be felt throughout Europe and America, and would transcend criminology to find references in literature. The likes of Émile Zola, Leo Tolstoy, Joseph Conrad, and Bram Stoker, the later in his descriptions of the vampire in Dracula, drew from Lombroso's work on criminal man.

Criminal Man, According to the Classification of Cesare Lombroso

Politics & Social Sciences

Lombroso, Cesare

Lombroso-Ferrero, Gina

Social Sciences

Degeneration

Arts & Photography

Nordau, Max

History & Criticism

Never meet your heroes, they say, and the dictum has seldom been better embodied than in this volume, the first full account of the life of Thomas Paine. Unlike the two hostile biographies published in his lifetime, this one was authored by someone who had known him personally; who had once been his admirer, disciple, and friend. It appears to have been written in a rage, for the Thetford pamphleteer's corpse had hardly gone cold in June 1809 when Cheetham applied quill to paper, bent on breaking down his subject before the maggots had their chance. He managed to complete, proof, and publish the text before the year was out. Since then, Paine has received largely hagiographical treatment, even in Britain, whose government once indicted him for treason, and where he became second only to Guy Fawkes' as the personage most frequently burnt in effigy. Paine's native Thetford, in Norfolk, has seen it fit to put a gilded statue of him, by an American sculptor and in a dramatic pose, on permanent display. The statue in Lewes is equally idealised. At worst he is described euphemistically as having been 'complex'. Cheetham's contemptuous narrative, which presents in haut relief all the negative features of Paine's prickly character, retells every gross anecdote retrievable from memory or from others who had known him, and sets out to record every tut, every eyeroll, and every exasperated sigh Paine might have caused, brings us closer to the man behind the legend, and paints a much more relatable picture of the times in which he lived. This is, at the end of the day, how some contemporaries felt about this nowadays secular saint, and their irritation is as much a historical document as is the admiration of their successors. Vindictive or brutally honest, this is classic 'history from below'.

The Life of Thomas Paine

Biographies & Memoirs

Cheetham, James

Historical

A Counterblaste to Tobacco, and Other Intemperate Diatribes Against Tobacco From the Early Modern Period

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Stuart, James

Addiction & Recovery

The Whigs Unmask'd: The Secret History of the Calves'-Head Club

Humor & Entertainment

Ward, Edward

Humor

The Scoundrel's Dictionary was first published in 1754, in a rough-and-ready pocket edition designed for practical use, the product of a time of rising crime, when criminals were viewed as folk heroes. Despite the romantic framing story provided on the title page, however, the text is largely derived from Shirley's The Triumph of Wit (1688), and the cant entries in B. E.'s A New Dictionary of the Terms Ancient and Modern of the Canting Crew (1699). All the same, The Scoundrel's Dictionary has its own charms, having had presumed contact with the beggars; its studious predecessors were, by contrast, intended for the diversion of the middle class, and were designed for consultation, or found only, in libraries. The volume is also more than simply a dictionary, since it contains a number of expository essays on the types of person who used the cant lexicon, when and for what purposes it was used, how its users were inducted into gangs, their methods of operation, and so on, plus a collection of songs, both in cant and in plain English translation. Since so many copies are thought to have been destroyed in a great fire, the original 18th-century edition is extremely rare, with only one having ever appeared at auction since 1976.

The Scoundrel's Dictionary, or an Explanation of the Cant Words Used by the Thieves, House-Breakers, Street-Robbers and Pick-Pockets about Town

ANONYMOUS

True Crime

Memoirs of the Secret Societies of the South of Italy, and Particularly the Carbonari

Salomon Bartholdy, Jakob

The Itching Palm: A Study of the Habit of Tipping in America

Business & Money

Scott, William Rufus

Business Culture

A Journal of the Plague Year: Being Observations or Memorials, Of the Most Remarkable Occurrences, as Well Public as Private, Which Happened in London During the Last Great Visitation in 1665

DEFOE, DANIEL

Diseases & Physical Ailments

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