Tuesday, December 17, 2019

Three books with very misleading titles


The original French title of this book is Le tarot des imagiers du moyen-âge -- i.e, The Tarot of the Medieval Image-makers, or something to that effect. How they got "of the Magicians" from that is anyone's guess -- surely not by misreading the French des imagiers as the German des Magiers! No translator could possibly be so incompetent, right? That said, the translator does have a German name, and his persistent use of arcana as a singular noun (plural arcanas) does not exactly fill me with confidence. At any rate, the book does not deal with magic or magicians at all, which is why I always use its French title when I cite it in my posts.


If you thought this book might be about, I don't know, Satanism as practiced in France, think again. A more accurate title would be Conspiracy Theories Current in France Regarding Alleged Devil-Worship in England, and it is essentially an anti-anti-Masonic polemic -- but a surprisingly entertaining one.


Originally published as The Round Towers of Ireland. (I haven't actually read this one yet, but it's hard to see how changing "Ireland" to "Atlantis" could be anything but misleading!)

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