THE PENGUIN BOOK OF DRAGONS - PENGUIN CLASSICS
The most popular mythological creature in the human imagination, dragons have provoked fear and fascination for their lethal venom and crushing coils, and as avatars of the Antichrist, servants of Satan, couriers of the damned to Hell, portents of disaster, and harbingers of the last days. Here are accounts spanning millennia and continents of these monsters that mark the boundary between the known and the unknown, including: their origins in the deserts of Africa; their struggles with their mortal enemies, elephants, in the jungles of South Asia; their fear of lightning; the world's first dragon slayer, in an ancient collection of Sanskrit hymns; the colossal sea monster Leviathan; the seven-headed "great red dragon" of the Book of Revelation; the Loch Ness monster; the dragon in Beowulf, who inspired Smaug in Tolkien's The Hobbit; the dragons in the prophecies of the wizard Merlin; a dragon saved from a centipede in Japan who gifts his human savior a magical bag of rice; the supernatural feathered serpent of ancient Mesoamerica; and a flatulent dragon the size of the Trojan Horse. From the dark halls of the Lonely Mountain to the blue skies of Westeros, we expect dragons to be gigantic, reptilian predators with massive, bat-like wings, who wreak havoc defending the gold they have hoarded in the deep places of the earth. But dragons are full of surprises, as is this book.
Edad recomendada: Adultos
SCOTT G BRUCE
Scott G. Bruce es un historiador y docente estadounidense especializado en historia medieval en la Universidad de Fordham, ubicada en Nueva York. Obtuvo su doctorado en la Universidad de Princeton en el año 2000. Su investigación académica aborda la historia del cristianismo en la Edad Media, el monacato premoderno europeo, el lenguaje por señas monástico y las percepciones europeas sobre el islam. Para el sello Penguin Classics editó las antologías The Penguin Book of the Undead en 2016, The Penguin Book of Hell en 2018, The Penguin Book of Dragons en 2021 y The Penguin Book of Demons en 2024. En 2025 publicó mediante Cornell University Press el volumen Monasticism and Manuscript Culture in Medieval Europe: Studies in Cluniac History, c. 900-1200.
