Three thousand years of visions of hell, from the ancient Near East to modern AmericaFrom the Hebrew Bible's shadowy realm of Sheol to twenty-first-century visions of Hell on earth, The Penguin Book of Hell takes us through three thousand years of eternal damnation. Along the way, you'll take a ferry ride with Aeneas to Hades, across the river Acheron; meet the Devil as imagined by a twelfth-century Irish monk—a monster with a thousand giant hands; wander the nine circles of Hell in Dante's Inferno, in which gluttons, liars, heretics, murderers, and hypocrites are made to endure crime-appropriate torture; and witness the debates that raged in Victorian England when new scientific advances cast doubt on the idea of an eternal hereafter. Drawing upon religious poetry, epics, theological treatises, stories of miracles, and accounts of saints' lives, this fascinating volume of hellscapes illuminates how Hell has long haunted us, in both life and death.

Two thousand years of legend and lore about the menace and majesty of dragons, which have breathed fire into our imaginations from ancient Rome to Game of Thrones A Penguin Classic From classical antiquity to the dawn of the modern age, dragons have proved to be the most popular mythological creature in the human imagination, featuring prominently in heroic literature around the world. Giant serpents guarding forbidden springs, venomous monsters ravenous for human flesh, fire-breathing wyrms slumbering atop great mounds of gold—the examples are fearsome and unfailingly fascinating. Ranging from ancient Greece and India to medieval Europe and China to the badlands of modern America, The Penguin Book of Dragons uncovers hidden traditions about dragons from around the world and explores the meaning of these monsters in religious myths and popular folklore, the perils of encounters with them, and the virtues of the heroes who vanquished them.