“In many ways, she was a genius.”
– Arild Rosenkrantz on Roma Lister
I am delighted to announce that Hexen Press has agreed to publish my book Aradia’s Hidden Hand: The Untold Life of Roma Lister. Aradia’s Hidden Hand will be the first-ever monograph on Roma Lister, a British-Italian folklore collector, occultist, and friend of the American writer Charles Godfrey Leland.
Using never-before-examined archival and epistolary materials, I present new evidence that Lister contributed to Aradia — one of the most important texts in the modern revival of witchcraft. Although Lister has largely been forgotten, I unearth new information about her intimate connections to Roman and Tuscan witches and her secret activities as a medium during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Aradia’s Hidden Hand also includes an array of unpublished Italian legends and folk tales collected by Lister in addition to her essays on magic and religion. Overall, the book unpacks Lister’s Odyssean life — and in doing so — reveals her important role as one of the hidden women who helped pave the way for a new religion of witches.
More to come very soon.
-A.D. Manns