Why am I passionate about this?

Ancient mythical animals are all around us in words and images. Following the transformations of such animals through literature and art across millennia has been my passion since the early ā€™80s. It was then, after years of writing and teaching, that I became intrigued by a winged and fishtailed lion figure on an antique oil lamp hanging in my study. That hybrid creature led me to the eagle-lion griffin and my first published book, The Book of Gryphons. I have followed a host of mythical beasts ever since. My most recent book, The Phoenix: An Unnatural Biography of a Mythical Beast, was published in a 2021 Chinese translation.


I wrote

The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present

By Joseph Nigg,

Book cover of The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present

What is my book about?

This illustrated collection of writings about fantastic animals, from the Babylonian epic of creation to The Hobbit of J. R.ā€¦

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The books I picked & why

Book cover of The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century

Joseph Nigg Why did I love this book?

This first complete English translation of a twelfth-century Latin bestiary has served me well as a partial map for following mythical beasts through timeā€”from when the unicorn, griffin, and other fantastic creatures were considered part of Godā€™s animal kingdom. T.  H. White supplements his translation of the moralized Christian bestiary with his own learned and entertaining footnotes and afterword. His ā€œFamily Treeā€ graph of Western animal studies highlights classical and medieval authors and ends with ā€œSir Thomas Browneā€™s Vulgar Errors,ā€ the end of bestiary lore and the beginning of modern biology.

By T. H. White,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Book of Beasts as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

8vo - over 7 3/4" - 9 3/4" tall. 296pp, illustrated.


Book cover of Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths

Joseph Nigg Why did I love this book?

Donā€™t be scared off by this 1646 book. Itā€™s essential for anyone who follows mythical beasts through time. One of the best-known parts of Browneā€™s influential book is Book III: ā€œOf divers popular and received Tenets concerning Animals, which examined, prove either false or dubious.ā€ By discrediting the classical and medieval authorities that perpetuated them, he considers the griffin, basilisk, unicorn, amphisbaena, and phoenix to be ā€œfabulous,ā€ thus separating them from the actual animal kingdom after centuries of general belief.

The now obscure Alexander Ross, ā€œChampion of the Ancients,ā€ refuted Browneā€™s book virtually point for point in his 1652 Arcana Microcosmi. Ross lost that Battle of the Books between the ancients and the moderns. Mythical animals rarely appeared in eighteenth-century literature, but they rose again a century later.

By Sir Thomas Browne,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work has been selected by scholars as being culturally important and is part of the knowledge base of civilization as we know it.

This work is in the public domain in the United States of America, and possibly other nations. Within the United States, you may freely copy and distribute this work, as no entity (individual or corporate) has a copyright on the body of the work.

Scholars believe, and we concur, that this work is important enough to be preserved, reproduced, and made generally available to the public. To ensure a quality reading experience, this work has beenā€¦


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Book cover of Norman Mailer at 100: Conversations, Correlations, Confrontations

Norman Mailer at 100 by Robert J. Begiebing,

Winner of the Robert F. Lucid Award for Mailer Studies.

Celebrating Mailer's centenary and the seventy-fifth publication of The Naked and the Dead, the book illustrates how Mailer remains a provocative presence in American letters.

From the debates of the nation's founders, to the revolutionary traditions of western romanticism,ā€¦

Book cover of The Lore of the Unicorn

Joseph Nigg Why did I love this book?

The unicorn and the dragon are still the two most ubiquitous animals to emerge from the host of fantastic creatures that began spreading through popular books, art, and film in the late 1970s. Years before the unicornā€™s commercial popularity, Odell Shepardā€™s classic book, The Lore of the Unicorn, traced the millennia-long cultural transformations of the mysterious animal, beginning with an early travelerā€™s tale of the wild asses of India. 

I admire Shepardā€™s blending of personal voice with wide-ranging research and commentary. He opens his introduction with, ā€œOn the table before me, there lies a long straight wand of ivory,ā€ a walking stick made of narwhal tusk, which for centuries had been accepted as unicorn horn.

By Odell Shepard,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Lore of the Unicorn as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This work, created in the early 20th century by Odell Shepard, is one of the better works made through time to craft mythology (and cryptozoology of a fashion) together with more modern historical treatments of its subject matter. It is the unicorn (or alicorn) here which concerns the text- and related material ranging from the quite antiquated, to the medieval, and the then-modern as anthropology and adventure made its way further into the outlands of Africa, India, and Tibet.

Here, of note, is an extensive treatment of the purported healing and anti-poison properties of unicorn horn, medieval medicine processing theā€¦


Book cover of Mythical and Fabulous Creatures: A Source Book and Research Guide

Joseph Nigg Why did I love this book?

As the late 1970s popularity of fantastic creatures continued to spread, professor Malcolm South edited a research guide that follows twenty imaginary animals and creatures through time. The substantial 1987 book is highly schematic in Southā€™s earnest attempt to sum up what was known about particular mythical beasts and imaginary creatures during their recent surge in popularity. Illustrations, a glossary, and even a taxonomy supplement specialistsā€™ articles and bibliographies about creatures from the unicorn and other major mythical animals to the vampire and werewolf, giants, and fairies. 

All my previous recommended books are cited in Southā€™s sourcebook. Iā€™ve been much indebted to it for research leads over the years and highly recommend it as a standard source for any reader following mythical beasts and other creatures.

By Malcolm South,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Mythical and Fabulous Creatures as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

This serious, scholarly treatment of 20 imaginary beings, from dragon and phoenix to giants and fairies, discusses the origin of each as an idea, its symbolism and lore, and its appearances in art, literature, or film. . . . Extensive bibliographies follow the generally ambitious and erudite essays while a final catch-all article and selective bibliography cover still more ground, at a gallop. . . . [There] are a number of thoughtful and well-written interpretive investigations into the nature and history of some persistent types. Entries on the Basilisk, Harpies, Medusa, and the Sphinx are particularly fine: here one feelsā€¦


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Book cover of Loveland

Loveland by Susan Ostrov,

What happens when a feminist who studies romance turns the lens on her own romantic adventures?

Loveland is about how the author came to understand this journey to the far country of loveā€”dating, marriage, a forbidden love affair, an unusual love affair as an older womanā€”as part of a largerā€¦

Book cover of Imaginary Animals: The Monstrous, the Wondrous and the Human

Joseph Nigg Why did I love this book?

I love this lavishly produced 2013 book. It overarches my other recommended ā€œbest books for following mythical beasts through time.ā€ Titles of early chaptersā€”ā€œWhat is an Imaginary Animal?ā€ ā€œEvery Real Animal is Imaginary,ā€ and ā€œEvery Imaginary Animal is Realā€ā€”encompass the bookā€™s interplay between natureā€™s animals, imaginary ones, and human beings.

Open Imaginary Animals anywhere to get a glimpse of its variety and scope. Boria Saxā€™s interdisciplinary, learned, and conversational text sweeps across folklore, legends, myths, and natural history of worldwide cultures from antiquity to today. Accompanying art, much in color, spans a Lascaux cave painting and a photograph of a human-looking robot; throughout are fantastic creatures in paintings, early natural history engravings, and other pictorial forms.

As Dr. Sax writes, ā€œImaginary creatures can be overwhelming in their multiplicity.ā€

By Boria Sax,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Imaginary Animals as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Tales throughout the world generally place fabulous beasts in marginal locations - deserts, deep woods, remote islands, glaciers, ocean depths, mountain peaks, caves, swamps, heavenly bodies and alternate universes. Legends tell us that imaginary animals belong to a primordial time, before we had encompassed the world with names, categories and scientific knowledge.
This book traces the history of imaginary animals from Palaeolithic art to the Harry Potter stories, and beyond. It shows how imagined creatures help us psychologically, giving form to our subconscious fears as 'monsters', as well as embodying our hopes as 'wonders'. Nevertheless, their greatest service may beā€¦


Explore my book šŸ˜€

The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present

By Joseph Nigg,

Book cover of The Book of Fabulous Beasts: A Treasury of Writings from Ancient Times to the Present

What is my book about?

This illustrated collection of writings about fantastic animals, from the Babylonian epic of creation to The Hobbit of J. R. R. Tolkien, spans millennia. More than a hundred primary sources in multiple literary genres chart imaginary animalsā€™ classical and medieval rise, post-Renaissance fall, and return to the world on the other side of belief. 

Getting permission to reprint texts and art from international libraries and museums was, of course, the final stage of research for this book. The most surprising art permission I finally acquired was for the Scandinavian Midgard Serpent. After a thousand years, the manuscript had recently been returned from Denmark to Iceland. A joy to produce, Fabulous Beasts provided a body of research for my later books.

Book cover of The Book of Beasts: Being a Translation from a Latin Bestiary of the Twelfth Century
Book cover of Pseudodoxia Epidemica, or, Enquiries Into Very Many Received Tenents, and Commonly Presumed Truths
Book cover of The Lore of the Unicorn

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