All of American literature is a tragedy. What we're living through now isn't a tragedy, however – it's a horror novel. W****hy bother writing when the world's on fire?Rising authoritarianism. Covid. Inflation. Wealth disparity. War. Climate change. While every time period is marked by apocalyptic fears, it certainly seems like our current anxieties aren't ill placed. And yet, art and literature persist.In captivating and cu...

**"Lively . . . excoriating, eloquent . . . We are all Faustians now." — James Wood, The New YorkerA devilishly fascinating tour of the Faustian bargain through the ages, from brimstone to blues and beyond . . .**From ancient times to the modern world, the idea of the Faustian bargain—the exchange of one's soul in return for untold riches and power—has exerted a magnetic pull upon our collective imaginations.Scholar Ed Simon takes us on a historical tour of...

A compendium celebrating the art of hell and its minionsPandemonium: The Illustrated History of Demonology presents—for the first time—Satan’s family tree, providing a history and analysis of his fellow fallen angels from Asmodeus to Ziminiar. Throughout the book, there are short entries on individual demons, but Pandemonium is more than just a visual encyclopedia. It also focuses on the influence of figures like Beelzebub, Azazel, Lilith, and Mol...

Before there was the United States, there was America. The former is a country, a nation, a geographic reality, but the latter is an idea. Invented more than discovered, “America” signified a revolutionary ideal of freedom, liberty, equality, and justice, what Tom Paine in Common Sense meant when he wrote that “We have it in our power to begin the world over again.”Among the greatest expressions of that faith was the Declaration of Independence wi...

The Seven Deadly Sins and Seven Heavenly Virtues: A Visual History is a richly illustrated, large‑format exploration of how humanity has attempted to understand morality, self‑control, and spiritual struggle through art, religion, and philosophy.Presented as a substantial hardcover volume with extensive color imagery throughout, the book brings together visual history and cultural analysis in a form designed for browsing as much as reading...

"Europe stretches to the Alleghenies, America lies beyond." - Ralph Waldo Emerson "They are my people and this is my town and it does my heart good just to be here." - Art Rooney Sr. What does it mean to be from Pittsburgh? Author Ed Simon explores the nature of the Yinzer and how the Steel City shapes anyone who is fortunate to call it home.

Binding the Ghost is both manifesto and example of a new variety of reading that centers a theological perspective in considering what literature actually does. Neither dogmatic nor apologetic, sectarian or denominational, this mode of reading acknowledges the inherently charged strangeness of writing and fiction, whereby authors have the ability to seemingly create entire universes from words alone.Ed Simonconsiders the theological depth, resonance, and mystery of the act...

"[An] epic, atomic history of the Steel City . . . a work of literature, a series of linked creative nonfiction essays, an historical story cycle." ―Phillip Maciak, Los Angeles Review of BooksThe land surrounding the confluence of the Allegheny, Monongahela, and Ohio rivers has supported communities of humans for millennia. Over the past four centuries, however, it has been transformed countless times by the many people who call it home. In this brief, lyr...

No Western religious concept has been as socially, culturally, economically, and politically significant as that of the apocalypse. Neither heaven and hell, nor sin and salvation, nor even God and the devil have merited the attention of billions of people in the manner that belief in the end of the world has. Apocalyptic thinking is riven by a fruitful--and at times dangerous--binary between the hopes for a coming millennium when all shall be perfected or of a fiery deluge when the earth s...

Dark Horse Books is proud to present the legendary graphic novel that introduced Halo to the world of comics--back for the first time in over a decade!This book includes four classic Halo stories that expand the deep lore of the Halo universe told by some of the finest creators in comic-book history. Artist Simon Bisley and writer Lee Hammock give us the central tale titled "The Last Voyage of the Infinite Succor." Award-winning mangaka T...

An original, 360-degree re-telling of the Battle of Britain through 18 of the iconic (and some less well-known) aircraft and the pilots who flew them - British, Polish, New Zealander, German, Danish.In Battle of Britain: The Pilots and the Planes That Made History, Ed Gorman and Simon Pearson paint a vivid picture of the men and their machines as the battle for air superiority over Britain is played out across the skies of Europe, from western Ireland to the German capital...

A poet who crafted the greatest character in literary history with his engaging anti-hero of Satan, John Milton connected personal experience with the breadth of cosmic epic with Paradise Lost.In the latest entry in Ig's celebrated Bookmarked series, author Ed Simon considers Paradise Lost within the scope of his own alcoholism and recovery, the collapse of higher education, the imbecility of the canon wars, the piquant joys of labyrinthine sentences, and the exqu...