New Medieval Books: Enchanted Creatures

Enchanted Creatures: Our Monsters and Their Meanings

By Natalie Lawrence

Pegasus Books
ISBN: 978-1-63936-865-5

A journey through humanity’s long fascination with the monstrous, ranging from dragons to walruses. This book explore how cultures across time have imagined, exaggerated, and feared creatures both real and mythical.

Excerpt:

Despite being abhorrent, monsters are deeply persistent. The unselfconscious freedom of childhood might slip away as we age and our fantasy worlds recede, but monsters stay with us. From the manticores and hydras of the ancient world to the alien Predators and Facehuggers of modern films, our imaginations have always produced monsters and we’ve always been entranced by them. Palaeolithic humans crafted strange hybrids on cave walls, from Europe to Southeast Asia. Dragons appear in different guises in almost every culture. Creature films gross hundreds of millions of dollars in cinema box offices. Monsters have been, and continue to be, so prolific inhuman imaginations that they must be deeply significant.

Who is this book for?

While only a few parts of the book deal with distinctly medieval monsters, this book can be useful as an introduction to the topic. One chapter does focus on the character Grendel from Beowulf.

“Comprehensive yet accessible, Enchanted Creatures perches at the intersection of literary criticism and cultural studies with its exciting examinations of the beasts that accompany humanity through dreams and nightmares alike.” ~ review by Jeana Jorgensen in Foreward.

The Author

Natalie Lawrence has a PhD  in the History and Philosophy of Science from the University of Cambridge. This is her third book. You can also follower her X/Twitter, Instagram or TikTok.

You can learn more about this book from the publisher’s website.

You can buy this book on Amazon.com | Amazon.ca | Amazon.co.uk