The third spellbook, funded on Kickstarter in 2021. The title means “Secrets From the Shadows,” and like every tome here it was made by hand: printed, bound and aged in a small run.
The book
The complete edition runs 300 pages, set to look like a book from the first years of the printing press. Hand-made artwork was scanned and reprinted on aged handmade paper, then bound by hand in goat hide. Illuminated letters, painted illustrations and handwritten notes crowd the margins, and nods to H.P. Lovecraft’s stories turn up throughout. An abridged edition with the same cover holds 100 of the 300 pages.
As with the other books, there is no publication date, no author and no ISBN inside. Nothing breaks the question of whether you are holding an ancient tome or something made last year.
The story inside
Its author travels through time and space, by means never quite explained, gathering lost magic to publish for “kin” who may need it someday. The book has thirteen sections: an introduction to magic, then twelve journeys to mystic places in search of forgotten knowledge. Somewhere along the way the author finds something horrible, naturally, and the later pages record the attempts to escape it.
Two later owners left their marks. An early scholar translated passages and added notes in the margins. A much later reader wrote commentary across two readings, the first while experimenting with the spells and the second while hunting for what became of the author.
The Voynich Manuscript
The same campaign offered a full reproduction of the Voynich Manuscript, the 15th-century book no one has ever translated and whose purpose is still unknown. Every page is included, fold-outs and all, on the same aged handmade paper and in the same goat hide binding.
The Noble Lyfe and Natures of Man
A color bestiary first printed in Latin in 1491 as Hortus Sanitatis, “The Garden of Health,” and in English in 1521. This reproduction pairs the color artwork of the Latin edition with the text of the English one, a combination that had not existed before.
The people behind it
Artwork, writing and marginalia by Brett Gray, Eleanor McDonald, Bella Pisasale, Peyton Mo, Jesús Cuauhtémoc Villa, Jen Atkisson, Michelle Cory, Matt Webb, Alwynne Metze and Pixie Schulz, with video by Eric Metze.
The campaign
De Arcanis Tenebris and the Voynich Manuscript reproduction were funded on Kickstarter in 2021. The campaign page, with every update and stretch goal, is still up on Kickstarter.