The Noble Origins of Halloween

 

The Book Of Halloween by Ruth E. Kelley was the first book-length history of the celebration.

Published when Kelley was just twenty-six years old, five years after she graduated summa cum laude from Radcliffe College, The Book of Hallowe’en was composed between shifts at Lynn Public Library in Massachusetts, where she would work for much of her life. Kelley ends her book with a vision. “May there not be written and presented in America a truly Hallowe’en pageant, illustrating and befitting its noble origin, and making its place secure among the holidays of the year?”

Read more: The Public Domain Review