The Curse on Bally na Bride -Sally and James North

A lost Golden Dawn gothic romance recovered at last. An heiress, an ancestral curse, a scholar with occult secrets and a devilish battle in the west of Ireland: enter Brodie-Innes’s newly rediscovered final novel.

Brodie-Innes was one of the most senior members of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, an esoteric society prominent in the late 19th century. Its members were drawn from many strata of society and included William Butler Yeats, Florence Farr, Aleister Crowley, Pamela Colman Smith, William Wynn Westcott, Annie Horniman, and Violet Firth, later known under her magical name Dion Fortune. Brodie-Innes is believed to have been one of Dion Fortune's occult teachers.

He wrote several novels on witchcraft and magic. The most well- known is The Devil's Mistress (1915), a supernatural horror novel centred on the real-life accusations of witchcraft made against Isobel Gowdie, and her confessions. He also wrote two other novels centred on Scottish supernatural themes: For the Soul of a Witch (1910), and Morag the Seal (1908). He wrote numerous articles on magic and witchcraft. Brodie-Innes was a member of the Sette of Odde Volumes (a London society of bibliophiles), and was its president in 1911.

Assumed lost for over a century, this newly recovered final novel by Brodie-Innes, is set against the wild landscapes of Ireland's west, sometime in the early 20th century. It is both a supernatural novel and a romantic one, with themes of family curses, malevolent magic, and thwarted love, all set in an atmospheric landscape of ruined towers and stone circles. The typescript was recently discovered in a box of old books, with hand written annotations and corrections in Brodie-Innes’ hand. He had evidently been working towards publication before his death in 1923. This is the first edition of this long-lost book.

Patricia Bryan, heiress to a family estate, inherits an ancestral curse. Her old friend Raymond MacGrath—Professor of ancient languages, and unexpectedly versed in occult lore—joins her to explore a ruined tower on the estate’s edge. What begins as curiosity draws them into a battle of good and evil, fought at an ancient stone circle where a wily parish priest faces the Devil himself—while a Crowleyesque black magician works in the shadows, plotting against the lovers, the forces of light, and the British government.

Who can lift the curse on Bally na Bride?