The Devil's Atlas

An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds

Edward Brooke-Hitching

$49.99

Hardback

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English

Simon & Schuster
16 February 2022

General & world history; Religion & beliefs

'Very beautiful and illuminating' Mariella Frostrup

Edward Brooke-Hitching, author of the international bestseller The Phantom Atlas delivers an atlas unlike any other. The Devil's Atlas is an illustrated guide to the heavens, hells and lands of the dead as imagined throughout history by cultures and religions around the world. Packed with colourful maps, paintings and captivating stories, the reader is taken on a compelling tour of the geography, history and supernatural populations of the afterworlds of cultures around the globe.

Whether it's the thirteen heavens of the Aztecs, the Chinese Taoist netherworld of 'hungry ghosts', or the 'Hell of the Flaming Rooster' of Japanese Buddhist mythology (in which sinners are tormented by an enormous fire-breathing cockerel), The Devil's Atlas gathers together a wonderful variety of beliefs and representations of life after death. These afterworlds are illustrated with an unprecedented collection of images, ranging from the marvellous 'infernal cartography' of the European Renaissance artists attempting to map the structured Hell described by Dante and the decorative Islamic depictions of Paradise to the various efforts to map the Garden of Eden and the spiritual vision paintings of nineteenth-century mediums.

The Devil's Atlas accompanies beautiful images with a highly readable trove of surprising facts and narratives, from the more inventive torture methods awaiting sinners, to colourful eccentric catalogues of demons, angels and assorted death deities. A traveller's guide to worlds unseen, The Devil's Atlas is a fascinating study of the boundless capacity of human invention, a visual chronicle of man's hopes, fears and fantasies of what lies beyond.

The Devil's Atlas An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds

By: Edward Brooke-Hitching
Imprint: Simon & Schuster
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 246mm, Width: 189mm,
ISBN: 9781398503557
ISBN 10: 139850355X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 16 February 2022
Audience: General/trade , ELT Advanced
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Edward Brooke-Hitching is the author of the critically acclaimed and bestselling trilogy The Phantom Atlas (2016), The Golden Atlas (2018) and The Sky Atlas (2019), as well as The Madman's Library (2020), all of which have been translated into numerous languages; he is also the author of Fox Tossing, Octopus Wrestling and Other Forgotten Sports (2015). He is a writer for the BBC series QI. A fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and an incurable cartophile, he lives surrounded by dusty heaps of old maps and books in London.

Reviews for The Devil's Atlas: An Explorer's Guide to Heavens, Hells and Afterworlds

'A funny and phantasmagoric tour of humanity's attempts to survey the afterlife, both high and low. If you'd like to know which author wrote about the bordellos in hell, where to find a tree that grows devil heads, or what angels' houses might smell like, this book is for you.' -- Bess Lovejoy, author of Rest in Pieces: The Curious Fates of Famous Corpses 'Stunning and utterly fascinating' -- Dan Schreiber - No Such Thing As A Fish 'A sumptuous collection of artworks, from all over the world, and through the ages, depicting visions of heaven and hell.' * Booktime magazine *