In Walking Corpses, Timothy S. Miller and John W. Nesbitt contextualize reactions to leprosy in medieval Western Europe by tracing its history in Late Antique Byzantium, which had been confronting leprosy and its effects for centuries. Integrating developments in both the Latin West and the Greek East, Walking Corpses challenges a number of misperceptions about attitudes toward the disease, including that theologians branded leprosy as punishment for sin (rather, it was seen as a mark of God's favor); that Christian teaching encouraged bans on the afflicted from society (in actuality, it was Germanic customary law); or that leprosariums were prisons (instead, they were centers of care, many of them self-governing). Informed by extensive archival research and recent bioarchaeology, Walking Corpses also includes new translations of three Greek texts regarding leprosy, while a new preface to the paperback edition updates the historiography on medieval perceptions and treatments of leprosy.
Leprosy has afflicted humans for thousands of years. It wasn't until the twelfth century, however, that the dreaded disease entered the collective psyche of Western society, thanks to a frightening epidemic that ravaged Catholic Europe. The Church responded by constructing charitable institutions called leprosariums to treat the rapidly expanding number of victims. As important as these events were, Timothy Miller and John Nesbitt remind us that the history of leprosy in the West is incomplete without also considering the Byzantine Empire, which confronted leprosy and its effects well before the Latin West. In Walking Corpses, they offer the first account of medieval leprosy that integrates the history of East and West.In their informative and engaging account, Miller and Nesbitt challenge a number of misperceptions and myths about medieval attitudes toward leprosy (known today as Hansen’s disease). They argue that ethical writings from the Byzantine world and from Catholic Europe never branded leprosy as punishment for sin; rather, theologians and moralists saw the disease as a mark of God’s favor on those chosen for heaven. The stimulus to ban lepers from society and ultimately to persecute them came not from Christian influence but from Germanic customary law. Leprosariums were not prisons to punish lepers but were centers of care to offer them support; some even provided both male and female residents the opportunity to govern their own communities under a form of written constitution. Informed by recent bioarchaeological research that has vastly expanded knowledge of the disease and its treatment by medieval society, Walking Corpses also includes three key Greek texts regarding leprosy (one of which has never been translated into English before).
Hours of great reading await, with tales from some of the 20th century's most renowned horror and dark fantasy authors. Included are: DAGON, by H.P. Lovecraft THE CHILDREN OF THE NIGHT, by Robert E. Howard MOTHER OF PEARL, by Fitz-James O'Brien THE WALKING DEAD, by E. Hoffmann Price SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO SHOUT ABOUT IT, by Darrell Schweitzer THE STORY OF MING-Y, by Lafcadio Hearn BY MOONLIGHT, by John Gregory Betancourt THE GATEWAY OF THE MONSTER, by William Hope Hodgson CANON ALBERIC'S SCRAP-BOOK, by M.R. James DRACULA'S GUEST, by Bram Stoker THE MAN WHO FOUND OUT, by Algernon Blackwood PHANTAS, by Oliver Onions FEAR, by Achmed Abdullah LUCIFER, by John D. Swain PENNIES FROM HELL, by Darrell Schweitzer THE HOUND, by H. P. Lovecraft THE DUKE OF DEMOLITION GOES TO HELL, by John Gregory Betancourt JUKE-BOX, by Henry Kuttner THE MUMMY'S FOOT, by Theophile Gautier PIT OF MADNESS, by E. Hoffmann Price THE GHOST OF TOWNELEY TOWERS, by Seabury Quinn SMALL WORLD, by William F. Nolan THE BELL IN THE FOG, by Gertrude Atherton THE CORPSE ON THE GRATING, by Hugh B. Cave THE MAN WHO COLLECTED KNIVES, by John Gregory Betancourt And don't forget to check out all the other volumes in the "Megapack" series! Search your favorite ebook store for "Wildside Megapack" to see the complete list...covering mysteries, adventure, ghost stories, science fiction, westerns, and much, much more!
The second Thomas Oscendale novel, following the success of The Dead of Mametz. This novel opens in Gallipoli on 4 March 1915, as the invasion force prepares to land on the Dardanelles. Oscendale is a thoughtful detective who fights against the brutality he sees all around him during WWI to bring a killer to justice and to solve the mystery behind a number of murders.
"The story of an enigmatic narrator we know only as Oz, a Kansas girl raised by a family of dead people. Oz tells how she survived her childhood only to face new dangers: the terrible risks of having feelings and the discovery that her family were not the only dead people walking around looking as if they were alive"--Publisher's description.
THE APOCALYPSE CODEX PROPHESIZES THE COMING OF THE APOCALYPSE, UNLESS, OF COURSE, THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE CAN PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE FROM HAPPENING. HOWEVER, IN THE TRICKY PROCESS OF TRYING TO PREVENT THE APOCALYPSE, THE APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE INSTEAD CAUSES THE APOCALYPSE TO BEGIN. IS THE ZOMBIE DOOMSDAY UPON US: IN SHADOW OF TOMORROW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL ARE ORPHANED TWINS RAISED AS DAY-WALKING VAMPIRE HUNTERS BY THE BROTHERHOOD OF BLOOD, OTHERWISE KNOWN DOWN THE ROAD AS THE UNDERGROUND APOCALYPSE RESISTANCE. WALKING DEAD MEN WANTED AS VIGILANTE OUTLAWS HUNTED DOWN BY THE LAW, HELLREBEL AND HELLDEVIL MUST HUNT DOWN THE DEVIL INCARNATE BEFORE THE DEVIL INCARNATE HUNTS DOWN SIN INCARNATE. OTHERWISE, SIN INCARNATE WILL GIVE BIRTH TO DEATH INCARNATE ~~~~~~~~~~~~~ DID YOU KNOW ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON PENNED DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE ON A SIX-DAY COCAINE BINGE? LIKE DR. JECKYLL AND MR. HYDE, EACH ONE OF US HAS A SPLIT PERSONALITY. THE GOOD SIDE THAT WE SHOW OFF DURING THE DAY, AND THEN THAT DARK SIDE THAT WE TRY TO KEEP HIDDEN IN THE DARKEST CORNER OF OUR CLOSET. I HIDE THESE EPISODES INSIDE THE CLOSET. WE ALL HAVE SKELETONS BURIED IN OUR CLOSET. BUT ME, I HAVE A CEMETERY BURIED IN MINE. HOWEVER, I FEAR SOMEONE WILL UNLOCK MY CLOSET. I SEE IT EVERY NIGHT IN MY NIGHTMARES, NIGHTMARES THAT WAKE ME EVERY NIGHT. LIKE FRANKENSTEIN, I SEE MYSELF FLEEING IN FEAR, RUNNING FASTER AND FASTER, RUSHING DOWN A DARK ROAD DISAPPEARING THROUGH THE SNOW-SWEPT WOODS GROWING DARKER AMIDST A BITTER WINTER, RUNNING FARTHER AND FURTHER AWAY, RUSHING THROUGH THE WIND-SWEPT WILD. IT WANDERS WAYWARD ACROSS UNFOLDING VIRGIN VISTAS AS IT WONDERS TO GOD IN HEAVEN, WHY THE HELL IN THE WORLD ARE THE RABID DOGS IN SUCH RUTHLESS, PITILESS, RELENTLESS PURSUIT? THERE ARE SOME DOGS THAT BARK. HOWEVER, THERE ARE OTHER DOGS THAT BITE. SAVE ME FROM MY SINS BEFORE THEY CATCH UP TO ME. MAN MAKES HIS HELL AND MY MIND IS MINE. SAVE ME FROM THE DEVIL AND FREE MY SOUL FROM THIS LIVING HELL. AS A WALKING DEAD MAN HUNTED DOWN IN THE DEAD MANS LAND, YUPPIE CITY WAS HOOKED ON MALE FUEL. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MAN. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MACHINE. MALE FUEL TURNED YOU INTO A MONSTER. HOWEVER, WHEN BIO/CIDE WENT UNDER, BIO/CIDE CITY NO LONGER MASS-PRODUCED MALE FUEL. THE ALICE-IN-WONDERLAND WITHDRAWAL SYMPTOM OF MALE FUEL WAS THAT YOU DEVELOPED VIOLENT ZOMBIE-LIKE BEHAVIOR THAT TURNED YOU INTO A HUMAN BEAST THAT BEHAVED LIKE A ZOMBIE. WHAT WAS STILL LEFT AT THE BIO/CIDE CITY WAS HORDED BY HUMANS THAT TOOK REFUGE UNDERGROUND. HOWEVER, FOR THOSE THAT WERE STILL ALIVE, THE UNDERWORLD WAS NOT ANY BETTER THAN THE WORLD THEY LEFT BEHIND. FOLLOWING THE GRAVEYARD WARS, THE WORLD OF HORROTICA WAS RECLAIMED BY THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS WHO WEATHERED THE STORM WHILE LIVING UNDERGROUND WHERE THE REMAINING REMNANTS OF THE HUMAN CIVILIZATION RETURNED TO THE MORTAL WORLD WHERE THE OUTCASTS AND THE OUTLAWS TOOK CONTROL OF THE HUMAN WORLD, WHICH BECAME KNOWN AS THE LAWLESS LAND.
Dahken Cor Pelson, a young man barely out of childhood, had found and freed a score of his people from the Loszian necromancer responsible for his parents’ murder. The responsibility of leadership has been thrust upon him, and he must somehow, with the help of a beautiful and deadly sorceress, manage to get his newfound people back across the Spine into the Shining West. Once there, what new challenges will Cor face? His new entourage may be Dahken, but they are still children. How will he protect them and teach them who and what they are? Will Queen Erella and the good people of Aquis accept the Dahken within their lands? Or will they simply slaughter him for his trouble? So continues the tale…
This book examines how the early Christian elite articulated and cultivated the affective dimensions of compassion in a Roman world that promoted emotional tranquillity as the path to human flourishing. Drawing upon a wide range of early Christians from both east and west, Wessel situates each author in the broader cultural and intellectual context. The reader is introduced to the diverse conditions in which Christians felt and were urged to feel compassion in exemplary ways, and in which warnings were sounded against the possibilities for distortion and exploitation. Wessel argues that the early Christians developed literary methods and rhetorical techniques to bring about appropriate emotional responses to human suffering. Their success in this regard marks the beginning of affective compassion as a Christian virtue. Comparison with early modern and contemporary philosophers and ethicists further demonstrates the intrinsic worth of the early Christian understanding of compassion.
Enter the dark world of Eden, a continent divided into three parts and meet Kenan, the mad mercenary who roams this land seeking vengenance against one he believes wronged him long ago. Kenan, a 3,000 year old man who believes himself to be demon possessed, carries a great blade, that only he can lift, and his Thunder Maker, a weapon of dire destruction. Kenan will go through hell to seek his vengeneance, and woe to any who get in his way. His destiny is that he catch a Naphill, a powerful God of old. But Kenan has inner demons he must fight as well, for he is tortured by 20 years of memories that only allude to what he truly is and, more importantly, what he will become. Man faces beasts, vampires, monsters and forces of darkness so malevolent that many will perish. But there are those who will survive-strange creatures that wish to save mankind and the world, and mutated monsters who wish to destroy it. Which side is Kenan on and what will he discover as he wages his biggest war ever-against demons of darkness and of his own tormented soul.
