Reviews for A Hallowe'en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings over the Centuries

The average rating for A Hallowe'en Anthology: Literary and Historical Writings over the Centuries based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2008-10-23 00:00:00 Oddgeir Eysteinsson Here in America, it can be safely said that the average child grows up with a minimal understanding of Halloween. Even though it is one of the top-grossing holidays in this country, just behind Christmas in revenue and one night which kids, young and old, look forward to with a mischievous, fanatical glee, the actual origins and meaning behind the rituals we perform each year (now greatly bastardized from the original rituals, but great fun nonetheless) are lost upon the masses. There are no stories (with perhaps the exception of THE GREAT PUMPKIN, CHARLIE BROWN) that are passed down from one generation to the next, no moral or spiritual instruction and no sense of purpose or place. If you ask your neighbor's kid...or even their parents...what Halloween is about, I guarantee you that the response will be something about dressing up as the most recent superhero (this year I'm sure we're to see quite a few Iron Man and Joker costumes) and getting candy. Lots and lots of candy. End of story. If you ask them about the origin of pumpkin carving or the Celtic myths of Samhain I'm sure the eager hunger for corn syrup glazing their eyes would quickly dissolve into an innocent befuddlement and a mild annoyance, only children are truly capable of when regarding adults. That, I'm afraid, is the work of decades of this great capitalistic nation leeching the life out of tradition and siphoning it back into a plastic mold somewhere over in China in order to create cute little plastic pumpkins to hang in one's windows (again, tragic, yet great fun)... READ THE FULL REVIEW ON FEAR ZONE:

Review # 2 was written on 2016-11-09 00:00:00 Jonathan Heslin "If The Halloween Encyclopedia filled one gap in the library of works available on the history of the holiday, then A Hallowe'en Anthology will fill another, in providing the first collection of complete, original source materials on the history of the holiday." I recommend getting this anthology at the same time as Morton's Trick or Treat: A History of Halloween, then reading each of the 27 entries after that country or time period's been discussed or the title referenced in Trick or Treat. Bonus points for all the illustrations, even if they're all in black and white. My fave was the "Joyous Halloween" postcard on page 109. You can see it in color here. Side note: I don't know why but it cracks me up that the first Halloween "book," published in 1898, was a 48-page pamphlet detailing how to throw a Halloween party. Bet those were some wild and crazy shindigs.