I've been cataloguing a bunch of my collected books and other material lately - something that's been taking up a huge chunk of my time - and I came across this item while sorting through my stack of ephemera:
BLACK, George F. (ed.), A List of Works Relating to Lycanthropy, New York Public Library, New York NY, 1920
Folio; stapled paper pamphlet; 8pp. Mild wear; pages toned and cover mildly creased and sunned; "Author's Compliments" stamp to the front cover with previous owner's ink inscription; some marks to the wrappers; library accession number to the inside front cover. Very good.
Back in 1919, George Black earned his Phd. by compiling this list of every book in the New York Public Library system that mentioned people turning into wolves. This copy of that document is the 1920 re-print of the pamphlet, which means that Dr. Black was hard at work tracking werewolves since at least the end of the Great War.
I don't for a minute imagine that George Black was some sort of occult detective with a penchant for taking down shape-shifters, but then again, what if he was? What if he spent his days sifting through the libraries of crumbling European stately homes armed only with his sharply-honed wits, his body of lycanthropic lore, and perhaps a silver-tipped fountain pen? 'Sounds cool to me, and certainly the basis for a dynamite "Call of Cthulhu" character.
Regardless of my imaginative flights of fancy, this document is pretty nifty in and of itself, listing a couple hundred wacky-sounding book titles which can pad out the shelves of your investigative team... or that of their enemies. Remember that this is a real document - not a prop - and all the books it outlines are also real books. With that in mind, I'll let it do its talking for itself:
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