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    Conjure Wife
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    Conjure Wife
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    Conjure Wife
    Ebook240 pages4 hours

    Conjure Wife

    By Fritz Leiber

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    What if half the world's population (the female half) practiced witchcraft and kept it a secret from men?

    Norman Saylor, a professor of ethnology, discovers his wife Tansy has put his research in the field of "Negro Conjure Magic" into practice for the sake of protecting him from other spell-casting faculty wives who wish to further their own husbands careers. A man of science, Norman has only an academic interest in the subject of magic and superstition and forces Tansy to cease all her workings and to burn all her charms. As soon as Norman burns the last charm, things start to fall apart. He has a run-in with a former student, his student-secretary accuses him of having seduced her, and he is passed over for a promotion that had seemed certain.

    Norman begins to have more than his fair share of small accidents: cutting himself while shaving, stepping on carpet tacks, cutting his hand with a letter opener, and more. He begins to imagine that there is a dark presence exploiting his fear of trucks. Tansy takes his curse upon herself forcing him to overcome his disbelief and use witchcraft to save his wife’s body—and her soul.

    Originally published in 1953, Conjure Wife is considered a modern classic of horror-fantasy and has been adapted for film three times: “Burn, Witch Burn” (1962); “Weird Woman” (1944); and “Witch's Brew” (1980). Yet another film remake is in the works. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Media
    Release dateApr 1, 2014
    ISBN9781497616547
    Unavailable
    Conjure Wife
    Author

    Fritz Leiber

    Fritz Leiber (1910–1992) was the highly acclaimed author of numerous science fiction stories and novels, many of which were made into films. He is best known as creator of the classic Lankhmar fantasy series. Leiber has won many awards, including the coveted Hugo and Nebula, and was honored as a lifetime Grand Master by the Science Fiction Writers of America.

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    Reviews for Conjure Wife

    4/5

    136 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This book lingered on my bookshelf for a year or two. I bought it in desperation to use up some book credits, and had little hope for it. Once I started reading it, I couldn't put it down. Lieber is a clever writer, and I loved his quote of Galileo regarding the stone dragon. He sprinkles in some other respectable literary references also. He keeps the story moving along, and explains the witchcraft portions of the story line.I also had some philosophical moments when he entered deep discussion regarding the human soul. Overall I think the book has aged quite well, and I plan on looking at a few other Lieber books.
    • 3/5
      Our narrator is a bit of male pig, but Leiber's gift is in achieving great economy with instilling fear of the unknown.
    • 4/5
      This was a fun novel about a witch.

      The professor of a small college discovers that his wife is practicing magic.
      He's disgusted that his wife, superstitious and flighty as she is, would do such a thing and orders her to immediately discontinue her practices.
      Unfortunately, he does not consider that there could have been benefits associated with her charms.
      I enjoyed the book very much despite the prejudices against women. Since this book was published in the 50's, I guess that type of thing is par for the course.
      All in all, I enjoyed the prose, the story and the ending.
    • 5/5
      Published in 1943, this doesn't read as dated as much as true to it's period, but with delicious hints of subversion here and there. The conceit of the story is that all women are witches--men just don't know it--and are constantly engaged in covert sorcerous warfare to protect or promote their men. And it has perhaps the perfect setting and point of view for this pre-Feminist Mystique horror tale. Norman Saylor, smug, self-satisfied Norman, professor of anthropology and sociology at Hempnell College, a thoroughgoing rationalist who congratulates himself on having this very modern rational wife--for a woman. Until he finds out that she's woven spells all about their home--benign spells of protection. But of course, Norman being a man of science and reason, all this superstitious nonsense must go. And when it does...And the subversive part? Well, Fritz Leiber really can write. I remember this particular novel vividly several years after first read. And just as a good yarn, a nifty Halloween read it delivers, but it has an almost Stepford Wives allegory about what lurks between the supposedly normal surface, even of academia. And it ends on just the perfect note that completely reverses that note of complacence hit in the beginning.