Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. This is not so much a second edition of my book on Secret Societies published in 1875 as an almost entirely new work. When the first edition was published, some of the societies had scarcely any history. Of the Nihilists, for instance, the account now given, recording their doings within the last eighteen years, fills many pages of this work. The story of other societies, active even then, such as the Fenians, had to be brought down to date, and yielded much new matter. I have thought it desirable to give fuller particulars of certain societies than I had given in the first edition, such as the Jesuits, for instance - the new matter having either been kept back, or being the result of further research.