Journey into the underworld through three thousand years of visions of hell, from the ancient Near East to modern America From the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The Penguin Book of Hell takes us through three thousand years of eternal damnation. Along the way, you'll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk - a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles and accounts of saints' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.
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Specifications
Book Details
Imprint
Penguin Classics
Publication Year
2018
Contributors
Author Info
Scott G. Bruce is the editor of The Penguin Book of the Undead and The Penguin Book of Hell, and the author of three books about the Abbey of Cluny. He is a professor of medieval history at Fordham University in New York City. He worked his way through college as a gravedigger.
Dimensions
Width
20 mm
Height
197 mm
Length
129 mm
Weight
237 gr
Ratings & Reviews
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The book is about different notions of hell and hereafter in different religions and civilizations. Book contains the excerpts from various pieces of literature from ancient Greece like Seneca to Mediaeval Italy like Dante's Inferno. It also explains concepts of hell in modern world. But I felt author missed the opportunity to add excerpts from "Epistle of Forgiveness" of Abu Ma'ari for Islamic hell. It also lacks concepts of hereafter in Hinduism. Otherwise book does the justice to the topic...