Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell Hardcover – October 19, 2013

The abundant 5-star reviews are frustrating because despite the obvious love went into the making of this book, it's highly flawed. Let's begin with how difficult it is to view the photos in 3-D, since that's the main draw here. The book comes with a sturdy plastic fold-up "owl" viewer which you line up on the plates printed on the pages. It works, but you have to jockey the book around to get the proper angle and lighting. This is an oversized, hardcover, 280-page book, so it's QUITE heavy, and if you don't go blind trying to see the 3-D, you'll get an incredible pain in the neck/hands/arms trying to get everything aligned properly."Series A" contains 73 cards, each of which has been digitally restored and featured in a two-page spread. On the left page is a large black-and-white blow-up of the image, on the right are color and black-and-white 3-D plates, with the bottom third of each page containing information about the image. Following that are 27 pages of additional information about the cards that they weren't able to jam into the two-page spreads. Personally, I feel like the inclusion of every A-series black-and-white 3-D plate was unnecessary and a COLOSSAL waste of space (more on that momentarily). The text basically states that after Series A, the cards weren't made with the same level of care - and this is also very true of the book's presentation of them. Subsequent sets are unrestored and, from series B-D, there are generally three 3-D plates per two-page spread, depending upon the varying amount of corresponding information.Unfortunately, when you get to series E, they "began to run out of space for illustrations" so the majority of the images in the final three sets (E, E.H., & F) were only printed as thumbnails, which are damn near impossible to see with the naked eye and sort of maddening with the owl viewer. The final 50 cards are jammed into 5 pages, each with 12 images (actually 24 thumbnails to make them 3-D); and the two missing cards are represented by question marks. Even looking through the magnifying viewer, the images are still too tiny to make out much detail, and I consistently saw a ghost 3rd image in the side-by-side setups on these pages. They should have either nixed the redundant A-series pics or released a second volume since the cover inaccurately claims the book "enables all but two of the 182 scenes to be enjoyed just as the creators intended." 125 is still quite a bit off from 180.The text includes historical insight whenever possible, French translations, interesting information about redressed sculptures and alternate versions, detailed descriptions of what appears in the photos, as well as hypotheses about meanings which have been lost to time. Also included are chapters about the photographic process (how it works and how to do-it-yourself), French historical background, biographies on the people behind the scenes, and information about other stereoscopic cards that appear to be part of the Diableries sets at-a-glance. The text is all well researched and written - but there's also ample speculative and incomplete information.On one hand, this is a truly amazing tome of art and history. On the other, it's heavily marred by the hefty price tag, literal dwindling attention to detail and laborious method of 3-D viewing.

I had found a book called 'Diableries' (not this book) in a used bookstore about 35 years ago. It was just individual black and white pictures, and the text was in French, so I knew nothing about the book or who created it or for what purpose. But the images were detailed and amazingly well crafted, full of whimsy and contemporary references mixed with various images of hell. It was a mystery to me, but the book was a personal treasure that I often paged through and marveled at the work that went into creating these tableaus. I happened to read a short article about Brian May touring with Queen again and he mentioned his passion for stereoscopic images and the book he had put together to recreate this series of Diableries. Mystery solved! May and company have put together an amazing book with the story behind my own book and the creation of this series. The history and details are fascinating, but not as fascinating as the images themselves, recreated in their original stereoscopic format, with included viewer to appreciate them in all their stereoscopic beauty. This book took an amazing amount of love and dedication to put together and it shows on every page! Discover this mysterious art form for yourself as May and company have put together a beautiful and informative volume of this lost art.

This book is truly amazing,An account of an early(contemporary)society,obsessed with the unseen realm that surrounds us at every waking and sleeping moment.The fact that a culture that was so renowned for its pioneers in non-religious philosophy and rebel schools of thinking,poetry,visual arts and even astronomy and medicine,allowed this pastime to completely devour their collective conscience,is so intriguing.It also represents the earliest convergence of religious iconography with artistic technology,i.e the stereoscopic lens required to view these infernal,3-dimensional masterpieces.This is truly a work of long enduring,laboriousstudy and exploration.This had to be a monolithic undertaking,the sheer fact that it actually took the combined effort of three dedicated authors/historians,to bring us this work of perfection,should speak volumes.I am truly in awe of this dark tome.Any one who (truly)appreciates history,art,the occult sciences or just the exploration of the arcane and how it was viewed throughout the ages will find this purchase justified.already at the top of my shelf.

If you're a fan of stereoscopic 3D, this is a cool book. Note that the entire book is dedicated to one particular genre of 3D art, which may not appeal to everyone, so read up on it first. But it is meticulously researched and annotated, and a lot of care clearly went into the project. Comes with an OWL stereo viewer, which can be used to view other 3D pairs as well.

This book is the most fun! The 3D images of the 19th-century French clay dioramas meticulously recreated from rare antique stereoscopic viewing cards are deliciously detailed, macabre and funny at the same time.The narratives describing the elements in each scene are fun reading: personable, insightful and a great guide to viewing them. The extensively detailed research into the principal makers of the sculpted scenes (Habert and Hennetier), along with those of their photographers and publishers, brings to life the social and political setting of the second French Empire, making viewing the Diableries educational as well as entertaining. The folding 3D viewer is well made and works great. "Diableries: Stereoscopic Adventures in Hell" is beautiful masterpiece, a labor of love, that is very engaging. I ended up buying several "Diableries" as gifts.

Fantastic! Ordered on the 13th August and it arrived just two days later.Most images worked. A few were hard to get to merge... I slid the Owlscope lenses to their longest reach, peered through them, and the images merged into one, but out of focus. Sliding the lenses closer to the image, as I kept on viewing, ensured a good result.The sliding lenses are good, as we all have different vision. I'm due to have my eyes operated on, lens replacements, the next two Mondays, so I might need reading glasses to view the pics after that!This is a big book, with a 3D lenticular photo on the cover. And the many, many stereoscopic photos inside are accompanied by a lot of information about the series. So, not just amazing 3D pics to stare at, but a good bit of history too. Well done, Prof Brian May and colleagues!

One of the most unusual nooks you shall ever likely get your hands on but so worth every penny. Brian May has taken a passion for stereoscopes and taken this rather fantastical series and out it into one volume. There are as legend has it two to three of the images out there which cannot be accounted for, so it is not complete, but fear not, what is inside is a treat to behold. The book comes in a hard binder with its own glasses for viewing the images. Trust me when I say you've never seen the arcane quite like this before. With modern technology it is hard to believe that the images are well over 100 years old, a simple optical trick everything appears in 3D. Would interest anyone with an interest in the occult, photography, imagery or film. Fabulous.

This book brought back a feeling of wonder and enchantment that I have vague memories of, as a child. I used to love the feeling of stepping into another world, and remember the magic of books such as this one. I thought that these kind of books were no longer produced, and here one is, as wonderful as hoped. This book has plenty to read and to occupy the reader, besides the images themselves, but the stereoscopic pictures are the focus, obviously. They bring hours of fascinating entertainment. Really well done, the research, the packaging and the image quality. This would make a great Christmas or Halloween present.

This is a long term review - I've owned the book over a year now. Its an amazing work, unusual, very interesting and clearly researched in depth. The viewer works just fine for me.I have one critisism. I think there is too much written detail of the main series of cards and a large, single photo of the particular card in question takes up an entire page with text. The opposite page has stereo photos of normal size in b&w and colour and more text anyway.The consequence of this, by their own admission, is that they run out of space and the lesser series photos are reduced in size by 50%. Its just too small and on repeated viewing I found I want to see these at their full size.BTW, apparently there are two missing Diableries, one of which has been found but it was too late for the book's publication.

Stunning book of incredible 3D stereoviews, The quality of the printing and the information is quite outstanding, The 3D viewer works very well and the optics are of very high quality so enables detail viewing of the images in glorious 3D, I cant recommenced this fantastic book enough, so buy it now, you wont be disappointed, I also brought "The Poor Man's Picture Gallery" another fabulous book by the same authors.