Wonderful Story of Ravalette

title page

The Wonderful Story of Ravalette, Dr. P. B. Randolph. New York: Sinclair Tousey, 1863. Bound with Tom Clark and His Wife.

Paschal Beverly Randolph (1825-1875) was a free man of color, a medical doctor (though it is unclear if he ever went to medical school), promoter of equal rights for women and blacks, a Spiritualist medium, occultist, and Rosicrucian — credited with bringing Rosicrucianism to the Americas.

His works on “Sex Magick” (Magia Sexualis), and the occult (After Death: The Immortality of Man) are still in print, as are reprints of The Wonderful Story of Ravalette.

As far as I can tell, this story is a semi-autobiographical novel, describing how the main character learns of the “mystery of the Great Fraternity.”

While I own a copy of this book, the scans for DP were provided by Wright American Fiction at Indiana University.

DP Project