The Black Pullet

Translated, edited and introduced by Paul Summers Young

"The science of the Magicians, preserved in the language of the hieroglyphs, has been lost. I am its last living custodian. Together we shall read these signs upon the walls of this pyramid, whose meaning has eluded scholars for centuries."

Dismissed by A.E. Waite as the probable work of mischievous priests in Rome, The Black Pullet is a ‘novella of ideas’ grounded in the Egyptomania that gripped France in the 1820s. Part magical handbook, part orientalist fantasy, in its various editions The Black Pullet was a popular, Bibliotheque Bleue-style grimoire in the spirit of Kircher’s Hermetic Egyptology at the very moment the new Egyptology was born. 

This new edition presents the talismans of the 1820 edition made famous by Waite, along with the instructions for the ‘Black Hen who Lays the Golden Eggs’ and the ‘Black Owl’. It incorporates material from three variant editions of the book, and contextual extracts from its literary inspiration, ‘Le Comte de Gabalis’.