This bibliographical essay, like the volume it serves, is independent of the bibliographical essay I appended to the first volume, and, at the same time, tied to it. Inevitably I used, in The Rise of Modern Paganism, many of the books I used again here, and this put me into a dilemma: to repeat the full evaluation I gave in the first volume would have made this essay too long and partly redundant. On the other hand, to supply only a cross-reference would have compelled the reader to engage in a time-consuming hunt for titles in another book. I have therefore adopted a compromise which, I trust, will be acceptable: whenever a title discussed in any detail in The Rise of Modern Paganism reappears in the present essay, I have confined myself to giving essential bibliographical information and added, in square brackets, a cross-reference to the first appearance of the title in the first volume.
I need hardly emphasize that this essay, like its earlier companion, is subjective and incomplete; ranging as it does over many areas, many of them interesting to scholars and replete with controversy, it could hardly be anything else. I have had many teachers, and this essay, I hope, reflects my many obligations with some accuracy. I have in the main cited books and articles that supplied me with facts or interpretations, gave me ideas, or aroused me to dissent. One other preliminary point: in this volume, as in the first, I am deeply indebted to the philosophical writings of Ernst Cassirer, particularly to his distinction between critical and mythical thinking [I, 423–4].