![]() ![]() Most men spent the evening at an alehouse. ![]() Before bed there was plenty to do: brew ale or make cheese, put the animals to bed or butcher them, repair tools, pick apples, haul lumber, catch birds, burn wasps' nests, recite folktales round the fire, play games or music, "rant and carouse, damn and drink". So what did honest folk get up to at night? Most were in bed by nine or 10 o'clock and back at work by five or six. Hooded cloaks or any kind of disguise or "false face" were prohibited in the middle ages. Today's fear of "hoodies", it turns out, is nothing new. Gangs such as the Scowrers, the Hectors and the Mohocks regularly abused pedestrians, knifing them in the face or standing women on their heads and "misusing them in a barbarous manner". There was gratuitous and unprovoked violence and plenty of vandalism (one great wheeze was to hang a dead cat on someone's front door). The hours of darkness belonged to bullies, bawds, pimps, rakes, fops and the occasional fribble. Murderers and thieves exploited night's advantages. However, the greatest hazard at night was not running into Beelzebub but, as Thomas Hobbes complained, "being knockt on the head for five or ten pounds". The night always offered greater opportunities for sexual misconduct, from adultery and prostitution to the wickedness of "self-pollution". They indulged in occult rituals or congregated to worship God in the nude. ![]() People scavenged for food or fuel, pilfered livestock, poached, smuggled and robbed graves. Fugitives fearful of arrest travelled freely, tenants slipped away without paying the rent, unmarried mothers abandoned their newborns, and homosexuals visited "molly-houses" or solicited in public gardens. In the dark one could evade the vigilance of church and state. This "nocturnal licence" encouraged an entire night culture very different from daily life. Under cover of darkness adolescents, servants and the poor escaped from the prying eyes of their parents, masters, owners or employers, and they made the most of it. As one French adage put it: "The good people love the day and the bad the night." In fact, as A Roger Ekirch reveals in this wise and compendious history of nighttime during the early modern era (c1500-1750), the reason why the night had such a bad reputation was because it undermined the social order that prevailed during the day. Honest people were too exhausted from working all day to wander abroad at night. "Nightwalkers" were obviously up to no good. They were thought to be responsible for deaths, broken legs, withered arms and even "bewitched genitals". An imp, perhaps, or a hobgoblin, a will-o'-the-wisp, a sprite, a pixie, a dobby, a kelpie, an elf, a troll, a boggle, a boggart or a waft. If you didn't bump into Old Nick himself on your travels, you were sure to encounter one of his minions. Remember while you read, light isn't playing tricks in Book of Night, the people are.Night was demonised in the middle ages as Satan's playtime. With sharp angles and prose, and a sinister bent, Holly Black is a master of shadow and story stitching. Determined to survive, Charlie throws herself into a maelstrom of secrets and murder, setting her against a cast of doppelgangers, mercurial billionaires, shadow thieves, and her own sister-all desperate to control the magic of the shadows. She gets by doing odd jobs for her patrons and the naive new money in her town at the edge of the Berkshires.īut when a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie's present life is thrown into chaos, and her future seems at best, unclear-and at worst, non-existent. Your shadow holds all the parts of you that you want to keep hidden-a second self, standing just to your left, walking behind you into lit rooms.Ĭharlie is a low-level con artist, working as a bartender while trying to distance herself from the powerful and dangerous underground world of shadow trading. You can alter someone's feelings-and memories-but manipulating shadows has a cost, with the potential to take hours or days from your life. In Charlie Hall's world, shadows can be altered, for entertainment and cosmetic preferences-but also to increase power and influence. 'No one writes like Holly Black.' John Green, #1 New York Times bestselling author 'Black is a master at world-building.' The New York Times Book Review #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black makes her stunning adult debut with Book of Night, a modern dark fantasy of shadowy thieves and secret societies in the vein of Ninth House and The Night Circus ![]()
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