Paganism: A Reader

What I hope was the last paper work for Graham Harvey's and my new anthology, Paganism: A Reader went into the campus mailbag today on its way to Routledge, the publisher. The book is a collection of mostly primary sources, so in that way it's somewhat different from Graham's earlier anthology, Shamanism: A Reader. The selections in it begin with Classical materials, including "The Hymn to the Moon" (attributed to Homer) and the famous address to Isis from Apuleius' The Golden Ass, in Robert Graves' translation. What I regret not being able to include (for reasons of space) was Sappho's poem to Aphrodite, which I always find to be heart-wrenchingly good. But the Emperor Julian's "Letter to a Pagan Priest" was included, as well as some translations from Celtic and Norse sources that have been important to the Pagan revival.

We have tried to show just a few of the literary influences on the Pagan revival as well, such as Kipling's Puck of Pook's Hill, Robert Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, and Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Mists of Avalon, as well as many well-known contemporary Pagan authors (Gardner, Valiente, Adler) and some new writers: Judy Harrow, Michael McNierney, and myself.