Victorian folklore and superstition studies

James Grant

1822 – 1887

James Grant was a prolific Scottish author, historian, and antiquarian — a distant relation of Sir Walter Scott — who published some ninety books spanning historical fiction, military history, and popular scholarship. His encyclopedic The Mysteries of All Nations (1880) surveyed the rise and progress of superstition, witchcraft, divination, and occult custom across world cultures and historical periods, drawing on nearly forty years of antiquarian research. The work served as a popular compendium of magical and occult folklore accessible to Victorian general readers with an interest in the history of belief.