Pnakotic Manuscripts

Physical Description: Massive single volume with red leather binding. The translation date of 1485 does not correspond to the more recent binding material (Library Use). No title on the cover, but the title page reveals the name with the subtitle “Translation and remarks from ancient Pnakotik Scrolls.” Marginal pencil notes in Carlyle’s hand visible at the beginning of the text. Several pages have had sections carefully removed, presumably illustrations.
Author: Unknown author and translator.
Publication History: A translation of the Pnakotica, originally written in classical Greek. Five bound manuscript versions of this work can be located across Europe and America, including copies at Miskatonic University and New York Public Library.
Initial Reading:
Written in a cumbersome Middle English dialect, this work translates a copy of The Pnakotic Scrolls (or Pnakotika) that arrived with an unidentified refugee arriving from the collapsing Byzantine Empire. The translator, reportedly working with a second collaborator, offers scattered commentary and reference quotes from additional sources. The translation contains decorative headings for sections on Hyperborea, Atlantis, and Jupiter.
Scribbled marginal notes mention “City of the Great Race?” alongside a lengthy passage, as well as “A means to reach the mind of the Observer!” The speculative note marks a passage detailing the history of the source material, which was created from fragments uncovered in a pre-historic alien library found in the “City of Pnakotus.”
Contemporary readers may regard the content contained within as a Medieval rendering of modern science fiction, including descriptions of alien races populating the earth, strange cosmic deities, and legendary heroes.