Montague Summers

Born in Bristol in 1880, Montague Summers was an English author, teacher, and clergyman whose life became almost as memorable as his books. He studied at Clifton College and Trinity College, Oxford, and later built a reputation as an independent scholar with a flair for the dramatic.

Summers wrote on two very different worlds: the English drama of the Stuart Restoration and the supernatural. He helped revive interest in Restoration playwrights, but many readers know him best for works on witchcraft, vampires, werewolves, and demonology, subjects he treated with unusual seriousness and conviction.

His eccentric public image added to his legend, and that sense of personality still clings to his writing today. Whether read as a literary historian, an occult enthusiast, or a wonderfully singular character, he remains one of the most distinctive nonfiction voices of the early 20th century.