BUREAU OF LOST CULTURE – A Supernatural History of the Atlantic (03/01/2026)
For most of human history, the sea has been both a road and a riddle. It promises fortune and freedom — but it also swallows ships whole. But in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as Britain’s empire spread across the globe, the sea became seen not just a physical frontier, but as a psychic one too — a vast, perilous deep where faith, science, fear, and fantasy all collided.
This is the story the British cultural historian Karl Bell tells in The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic, a wonderful study of sailors’ lore, ghost ships, sea monsters, omens and uncanny maritime experiences.
It’s not a history of battles or trade routes, but of dreams, fantasies and terrors — of the sea as it existed in the mind of those who sailed upon it
The Perlious Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/the-perilous-deepFor most of human history, the sea has been both a road and a riddle. It promises fortune and freedom — but it also swallows ships whole. But in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as Britain’s empire spread across the globe, the sea became seen not just a physical frontier, but as a psychic one too — a vast, perilous deep where faith, science, fear, and fantasy all collided.
This is the story the British cultural historian Karl Bell tells in The Perilous Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic, a wonderful study of sailors’ lore, ghost ships, sea monsters, omens and uncanny maritime experiences.
It’s not a history of battles or trade routes, but of dreams, fantasies and terrors — of the sea as it existed in the mind of those who sailed upon it
The Perlious Deep: A Supernatural History of the Atlantic https://reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/the-perilous-deep
