The Book of Magic, page 34
“We won’t wear bathing suits, even when we’re very old.”
“And no shoes. All summer long.”
Once upon a time they were as different as night and day, but that had changed. Each had what they’d wished for most. How lucky they’d been to be raised by women who taught them what was most important in this world. Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.
All the way home they held hands, exactly as they had when they were little girls who had taken a plane through a storm to reach Massachusetts. It wasn’t so long ago. It felt like only yesterday. They had worn black coats and patent leather shoes as they walked up the bluestone path to the house on Magnolia Street, with no idea of what might come next.
Then and there, their lives had begun.
HISTORICAL NOTE
AMELIA BASSANO
In my novels, Amelia Bassano is the author of the imaginary Grimoire, The Book of the Raven, a text containing a collection of left-handed magic, what has been called the Dark Art. But she was also a very real woman, known as Emilia Bassano Lanier, whose life spanned the years 1569 to 1645, and who was the first woman in England to publish a volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. She was a feminist who wrote a defense of Eve, blamed as the originator of sin, a crime for which all women were then accused. Bassano lived through the plague years in London and the riots that followed, and although fate made the best of her, she did what she could to make the best of fate.
There are those who believe Amelia Bassano was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s poems, and still others who are convinced that she was much more. It was well known that Shakespeare stole or “borrowed” his plots, and perhaps he did so from Bassano, for she was well versed in issues and ideas arising in Shakespeare’s work, subjects it seems unlikely he would have known about from personal experience or from readings. Her depth of knowledge covered themes and issues Shakespeare wrote about, ranging from falconry (she was mistress to the royal falconer), to Italian geography that would likely be known only to native Italians, to Jewish history and references to the Kabbalah and the Talmud, including a surprisingly compassionate attitude toward Jews in general (If you prick us, do we not bleed?) in a time when Jews had been exiled from England from 1290 until 1656, and, even upon their readmittance, often lived hidden lives. Bassano was familiar with the Italian stories that were referenced in the plays, and had traveled to Elsinore, where Hamlet takes place, and knew the castle intimately.
There are some who believe that she wrote the plays, and never received credit for doing so due to her gender.
Bassano was born into a family of Jewish Italian musicians from a town near Venice who came to be in the court of Elizabeth I. At the age of thirteen she became the mistress of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, aged fifty-six, said to be the son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and first cousin of Elizabeth I, who was the royal patron of all theater, including theaters producing Shakespeare’s plays. Bassano also was said to have had an affair with Christopher (Kit) Marlowe, who perhaps was her teacher in the world of writing for the theater. Bassano’s cousin wrote songs for Shakespeare’s plays, and another family member was said to design sets and also create music for the plays. As a girl, she was taken up as a ward of Susan Bertie, countess of Kent, and in this way the royal world opened to her. She was also involved with magic and with the court astrologer, Dr. Simon Forman, well known as an occultist and herbalist.
Amelia Bassano struggled for her voice to be heard at a time when women’s voices were silenced, no matter how brilliant they might be. In the world of the Owens family, her imagined Grimoire, The Book of the Raven, and her clear belief that words are the most powerful magic, have affected every generation.
For further reading about the life of Amelia Bassano:
Grossman, Marshall, ed. Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre, and the Canon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. A collection of essays concerned with Bassano’s life and work.
Hudson, John. Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2014, 2016. A fascinating book which gives a very convincing argument that Bassano was, indeed, the playwright.
LIST OF BOOKS
This novel begins and ends in a library, and you may have noticed that within these pages I mention many book titles. These are some of my favorite books, and I wanted to share the full list with you here. If you look carefully, you may find other references to the books I love within the text and many magic reference books. Thank you to the authors of these beautiful books that changed my life every time I walked into a library.
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Borrowers, Mary Norton
Half Magic, Edward Eager
Magic by the Lake, Edward Eager
The Time Garden, Edward Eager
Emma, Jane Austen
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Grace Paley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
The Blue Fairy Book, Andrew Lang
The Odyssey, Homer
Started Early, Took My Dog, Kate Atkinson
Olive Kittredge, Elizabeth Strout
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Beloved, Toni Morrison
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to
* * *
Marysue Rucci
Jonathan Karp
Amanda Urban
Ron Bernstein
Suzanne Baboneau
Dana Canedy
Zachary Knoll
Samantha Hoback
Elizabeth Breeden
Jackie Seow
Brittany Adames
Carly Loman
Julia Prosser
Nicole Dewey
* * *
Sam Fox, Rory Walsh, Drew Foster
Miriam Feuerle and everyone at Lyceum Agency
* * *
Sue Standing
* * *
A special thank you Madison Wolters, Deborah Revzin, and Rikki Angelides
* * *
With gratitude to my readers
More from this Series
The Rules of Magic
Book 2
Magic Lessons
Book 3
More from the Author
The World That We Knew
Echoes
Faerie Knitting
Faithful
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Alyssa Peek
ALICE HOFFMAN is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew; The Marriage of Opposites; The Red Garden; The Museum of Extraordinary Things; The Dovekeepers; Here on Earth, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and the Practical Magic series, including Practical Magic; Magic Lessons; The Rules of Magic, a selection of Reese’s Book Club; and The Book of Magic. She lives near Boston.
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Alice-Hoffman
@simonbooks
ALSO BY ALICE HOFFMAN
Magic Lessons
The World That We Knew
The Rules of Magic
Faithful
The Marriage of Opposites
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
The Dovekeepers
The Red Garden
The Story Sisters
The Third Angel
Skylight Confessions
The Ice Queen
Blackbird House
The Probable Future
Blue Diary
The River King
Local Girls
Here on Earth
Practical Magic
Second Nature
Turtle Moon
Seventh Heaven
At Risk
Illumination Night
Fortune’s Daughter
White Horses
Angel Landing
The Drowning Season
Property Of
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
Nightbird
Green Heart
The Foretelling
Green Witch
Incantation
Green Angel
Indigo
Aquamarine
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
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Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Alice Hoffman
THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition October 2021
SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Carly Loman
Jacket design by Lauren Peters-Collaer
Jacket photograph by Tatiana Volontir
Endpaper artwork by Strawberryluna
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-9821-5148-5
ISBN 978-1-9821-5150-8 (ebook)
Alice Hoffman, The Book of Magic
Thank you for reading books on Archive.BookFrom.Net
Share this book with friends
“And no shoes. All summer long.”
Once upon a time they were as different as night and day, but that had changed. Each had what they’d wished for most. How lucky they’d been to be raised by women who taught them what was most important in this world. Read as many books as you can. Choose courage over caution. Take time to visit libraries. Look for light in the darkness. Have faith in yourself. Know that love is what matters most.
All the way home they held hands, exactly as they had when they were little girls who had taken a plane through a storm to reach Massachusetts. It wasn’t so long ago. It felt like only yesterday. They had worn black coats and patent leather shoes as they walked up the bluestone path to the house on Magnolia Street, with no idea of what might come next.
Then and there, their lives had begun.
HISTORICAL NOTE
AMELIA BASSANO
In my novels, Amelia Bassano is the author of the imaginary Grimoire, The Book of the Raven, a text containing a collection of left-handed magic, what has been called the Dark Art. But she was also a very real woman, known as Emilia Bassano Lanier, whose life spanned the years 1569 to 1645, and who was the first woman in England to publish a volume of poems, Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum. She was a feminist who wrote a defense of Eve, blamed as the originator of sin, a crime for which all women were then accused. Bassano lived through the plague years in London and the riots that followed, and although fate made the best of her, she did what she could to make the best of fate.
There are those who believe Amelia Bassano was the Dark Lady of Shakespeare’s poems, and still others who are convinced that she was much more. It was well known that Shakespeare stole or “borrowed” his plots, and perhaps he did so from Bassano, for she was well versed in issues and ideas arising in Shakespeare’s work, subjects it seems unlikely he would have known about from personal experience or from readings. Her depth of knowledge covered themes and issues Shakespeare wrote about, ranging from falconry (she was mistress to the royal falconer), to Italian geography that would likely be known only to native Italians, to Jewish history and references to the Kabbalah and the Talmud, including a surprisingly compassionate attitude toward Jews in general (If you prick us, do we not bleed?) in a time when Jews had been exiled from England from 1290 until 1656, and, even upon their readmittance, often lived hidden lives. Bassano was familiar with the Italian stories that were referenced in the plays, and had traveled to Elsinore, where Hamlet takes place, and knew the castle intimately.
There are some who believe that she wrote the plays, and never received credit for doing so due to her gender.
Bassano was born into a family of Jewish Italian musicians from a town near Venice who came to be in the court of Elizabeth I. At the age of thirteen she became the mistress of Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon, aged fifty-six, said to be the son of Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn, and first cousin of Elizabeth I, who was the royal patron of all theater, including theaters producing Shakespeare’s plays. Bassano also was said to have had an affair with Christopher (Kit) Marlowe, who perhaps was her teacher in the world of writing for the theater. Bassano’s cousin wrote songs for Shakespeare’s plays, and another family member was said to design sets and also create music for the plays. As a girl, she was taken up as a ward of Susan Bertie, countess of Kent, and in this way the royal world opened to her. She was also involved with magic and with the court astrologer, Dr. Simon Forman, well known as an occultist and herbalist.
Amelia Bassano struggled for her voice to be heard at a time when women’s voices were silenced, no matter how brilliant they might be. In the world of the Owens family, her imagined Grimoire, The Book of the Raven, and her clear belief that words are the most powerful magic, have affected every generation.
For further reading about the life of Amelia Bassano:
Grossman, Marshall, ed. Aemilia Lanyer: Gender, Genre, and the Canon. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1998. A collection of essays concerned with Bassano’s life and work.
Hudson, John. Shakespeare’s Dark Lady. Gloucestershire, UK: Amberley Publishing, 2014, 2016. A fascinating book which gives a very convincing argument that Bassano was, indeed, the playwright.
LIST OF BOOKS
This novel begins and ends in a library, and you may have noticed that within these pages I mention many book titles. These are some of my favorite books, and I wanted to share the full list with you here. If you look carefully, you may find other references to the books I love within the text and many magic reference books. Thank you to the authors of these beautiful books that changed my life every time I walked into a library.
The Poems of Emily Dickinson
Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
Wide Sargasso Sea, Jean Rhys
Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
The Borrowers, Mary Norton
Half Magic, Edward Eager
Magic by the Lake, Edward Eager
The Time Garden, Edward Eager
Emma, Jane Austen
Persuasion, Jane Austen
Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
Enormous Changes at the Last Minute, Grace Paley
Fahrenheit 451, Ray Bradbury
Something Wicked This Way Comes, Ray Bradbury
We Have Always Lived in the Castle, Shirley Jackson
The Waves, Virginia Woolf
The Blue Fairy Book, Andrew Lang
The Odyssey, Homer
Started Early, Took My Dog, Kate Atkinson
Olive Kittredge, Elizabeth Strout
The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
Beloved, Toni Morrison
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Many thanks to
* * *
Marysue Rucci
Jonathan Karp
Amanda Urban
Ron Bernstein
Suzanne Baboneau
Dana Canedy
Zachary Knoll
Samantha Hoback
Elizabeth Breeden
Jackie Seow
Brittany Adames
Carly Loman
Julia Prosser
Nicole Dewey
* * *
Sam Fox, Rory Walsh, Drew Foster
Miriam Feuerle and everyone at Lyceum Agency
* * *
Sue Standing
* * *
A special thank you Madison Wolters, Deborah Revzin, and Rikki Angelides
* * *
With gratitude to my readers
More from this Series
The Rules of Magic
Book 2
Magic Lessons
Book 3
More from the Author
The World That We Knew
Echoes
Faerie Knitting
Faithful
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
© Alyssa Peek
ALICE HOFFMAN is the author of more than thirty works of fiction, including The World That We Knew; The Marriage of Opposites; The Red Garden; The Museum of Extraordinary Things; The Dovekeepers; Here on Earth, an Oprah’s Book Club selection; and the Practical Magic series, including Practical Magic; Magic Lessons; The Rules of Magic, a selection of Reese’s Book Club; and The Book of Magic. She lives near Boston.
SimonandSchuster.com
www.SimonandSchuster.com/Authors/Alice-Hoffman
@simonbooks
ALSO BY ALICE HOFFMAN
Magic Lessons
The World That We Knew
The Rules of Magic
Faithful
The Marriage of Opposites
The Museum of Extraordinary Things
The Dovekeepers
The Red Garden
The Story Sisters
The Third Angel
Skylight Confessions
The Ice Queen
Blackbird House
The Probable Future
Blue Diary
The River King
Local Girls
Here on Earth
Practical Magic
Second Nature
Turtle Moon
Seventh Heaven
At Risk
Illumination Night
Fortune’s Daughter
White Horses
Angel Landing
The Drowning Season
Property Of
YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
Nightbird
Green Heart
The Foretelling
Green Witch
Incantation
Green Angel
Indigo
Aquamarine
We hope you enjoyed reading this Simon & Schuster ebook.
Get a FREE ebook when you join our mailing list. Plus, get updates on new releases, deals, recommended reads, and more from Simon & Schuster. Click below to sign up and see terms and conditions.
CLICK HERE TO SIGN UP
Already a subscriber? Provide your email again so we can register this ebook and send you more of what you like to read. You will continue to receive exclusive offers in your inbox.
Simon & Schuster
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Alice Hoffman
THE POEMS OF EMILY DICKINSON: VARIORUM EDITION, edited by Ralph W. Franklin, Cambridge, Mass.: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, Copyright © 1998 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1951, 1955 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © renewed 1979, 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Copyright © 1914, 1918, 1919, 1924, 1929, 1930, 1932, 1935, 1937, 1942 by Martha Dickinson Bianchi. Copyright © 1952, 1957, 1958, 1963, 1965 by Mary L. Hampson.
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information, address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.
First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition October 2021
SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
For information about special discounts for bulk purchases, please contact Simon & Schuster Special Sales at 1-866-506-1949 or business@simonandschuster.com.
The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event, contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com.
Interior design by Carly Loman
Jacket design by Lauren Peters-Collaer
Jacket photograph by Tatiana Volontir
Endpaper artwork by Strawberryluna
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data has been applied for.
ISBN 978-1-9821-5148-5
ISBN 978-1-9821-5150-8 (ebook)
Alice Hoffman, The Book of Magic
