OWEN, Mary Alicia "Old Rabbit, the Voodoo and Other Sorcerers" [T. Fisher Unwin, 1893]

OWEN, Mary Alicia. Old Rabbit, the Voodoo and Other Sorcerers.

London: T. Fisher Unwin, 1893. First British edition. 8” x 5.5”, xv + 310pp. Illustrated throughout by Juliette A. Owen and Louis Wain, with an introduction by Charles Godfrey Leland. Publisher's pictorial cloth decorated in black, blue, and tan. Spine toned and lettering somewhat faded, light rubbing and wear at extremities, a few gatherings slightly proud but binding sound. Contemporary ownership signature to front endpaper. Good+.

A curious and increasingly sought-after study of Ozark folk magic, conjure practices, witchcraft beliefs, charms, omens, and supernatural traditions as collected in nineteenth-century Missouri. Rather than a work of fiction, Owen's book preserves oral traditions, stories, and firsthand accounts gathered from African American, Indigenous, and rural Ozark communities at a moment when folklorists were beginning to document regional belief systems before they disappeared under the pressures of modernization. The result is one of the earliest substantial treatments of American folk magic and vernacular supernatural belief.

The volume is notable for bringing together several figures now collected in their own right. Owen was an important early folklorist; the introduction is by Charles Godfrey Leland, author of Aradia and a foundational figure in the study of folklore and magic; and the illustrations include early work by Louis Wain, later celebrated for his distinctive cat illustrations. Long regarded as a cornerstone source for Ozark folklore and American conjure traditions, the book remains an important primary document for the study of folk religion, magic, and regional culture in the nineteenth-century United States.