The Book of Hallowe'en

Ruth Edna Kelley wrote this in 1919, when Halloween was still a living, shifting holiday in America, neither fully the commercial spectacle it would become nor the ancient rite it had been. She traces Halloween backward through time: from the parties and pranks of the 1910s to the Irish and Scottish immigrations that brought Samhain to American soil, to the Celtic festival itself with its bonfires and portents, and further still to the primitive worship of the sun and the dread of winter's darkness. This isn't a dry academic treatise. Kelley writes with genuine fascination, delighting in divination games, folk poems, and the peculiar superstitions that once surrounded this most mysterious of nights. She documents customs that have since faded entirely, capturing a moment when the old ways were still remembered but beginning to blur. For anyone who has ever wondered why we carve pumpkins, why we fear black cats, or what Spirits' Night really meant, this book answers with scholarly rigor and ghostly charm.