Definitive study of Wheatley and the world he lived in, providing along the way an enthralling social history of the 20th century.

High acclaimed and the definitive social history of absinthe

A mother's struggle to stop her son becoming a priest & leaving her. Hans Cadzand's father dies when he is an infant and he becomes the centre of his mother's life. As he grows up from a pretty child to a serious young man with deep religious convictions, she hopes she will remain the focus of his life. She sees his desire to enter holy orders as a threat to their life together and tries to keep him near her by marrying him off to the daughter of her closest friend. This plan founders on t...

The seedy and beguiling Gerald Hamilton was the man who Isherwood modelled Mr Norris on in Mr Norris Changes Train

A witty, erudite primer to the world's most notorious drink.La Fée Verte (or "The Green Fairy") has intoxicated artists, poets, and writers ever since the late eighteenth century. Stories abound of absinthe's drug-like sensations of mood lift and inspiration due to the presence of wormwood, its infamous "special" ingredient, which ultimately leads to delirium, homicidal mania, and death. Opening with the sensational 1905 Absinthe Murders, Phil Baker offers a cultur...

A revised edition of Phil Baker’s critically lauded biography of artist and occultist, Austin Osman Spare.London has harbored many curious characters, but few more curious than the artist and visionary Austin Osman Spare (1886–1956).A controversial enfant terrible of the Edwardian art world, the young Spare was hailed as a genius and a new Aubrey Beardsley, while George Bernard Shaw reportedly said “Spare’s medicine is too strong for the average ma...

In The Faith Once Delivered Volume 1: 50 Days with the Disciples of the Apostles, I show you, the reader, how the second generation of Jesus followers continued to believe, teach and live the words of our Lord. Imagine spending 50 days with men like Clement of Rome, Ignatius of Antioch and Polycarp of Smyrna, who were personally discipled by the original Apostles! I encourage you to join me on this journey and let these ancient writings deepen and refine your faith.

The earliest Christian document outside of the New Testament is almost certainly The Didache, which is also known as The Lord's Teaching Through the Twelve Apostles to the Nations. In its final chapter, the author says that in the last days, the sheep will turn into wolves and the Deceiver of the world will commit abominations that have never been seen since the world began. Is this what Paul had in mind when he wrote 2 Thessalonians 2:1-12?In The Final Abominable Temple, Baker tra...

A work that combines biography and pyschogeography to trace Aleister Crowley's life in London."I dreamed I was paying a visit to London," Aleister Crowley wrote in Italy, continuing, "It was a vivid, long, coherent, detailed affair of several days, with so much incident that it would make a good-sized volume." Crowley had a love-hate relationship with London, but the city was where he spent much of his adult life, and it was the capital of the culture that created ...

One of the giants of popular fiction, with total sales of around fifty million books, Dennis Wheatley held twentieth-century Britain spellbound. His Black Magic novels like The Devil Rides Out created an oddly seductive and luxurious vision of Satanism, but in reality he was as interested in politics as occultism. Wheatley was closely involved with the secret intelligence community, and this powerfully researched study shows just how directly this drove his work, from his unlikely warnings...

In Faithful Witness, Phil Baker explains the theology of martyrdom that developed over the first 300 years of Christianity, and why that theology proved so powerful in the early years of the faith. Though many examples of early Christian martyrdom will be told, the intent of this book is not to simply give the accounts these martyrs' stories. This book is more about the why than the what.Why did they choose faithfulness over fear? Why did they choose dying over killing? Why did the...

City of cities, the modern world’s first great metropolis, London has shaped everything from clothing to youth culture. It has a unique place in the world’s memory, even as its role has changed from the capital of the planet to its playground, and as its lived history has mutated into the heritage industry.Londoner Phil Baker explores the city’s history, and the London of today, balancing well-known major events with more curious and eccentric details. He reveals a city of almost un...