Monsterland

a journey around the world’s dark imagination
Nicholas Jubber

‘As a collection of wonderfully creepy travels, Monsterland is both chillingly delicious and uncannily joyous.’

John Gimlette, author of Elephant Complex

‘An exquisite, carefully assembled tapestry of otherworldly beasts, mega-ghouls, and fiendish demigods. There’s so much here — not just on a whole pantheon of monsters but about our universal need for them. I loved every page. A treasure trove of fascinating lore, gossip, and cautionary tales of the fantastic, telling of our human capacity to conjure vampires, zombies, ogres, and dragons not just from the darkest corners of our imagination, but wherever and whenever we may. Absorbing stuff.’

Benedict Allen

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‘Monsterland is a tour de force. It combines scholarly folklore academia with nature writing at its best. Nicholas Jubber is an amusing travel companion, with a self-deprecating humour and unobtrusive presence. The shoestring nature of his travel budget makes him even more endearing. Like a modern day troubadour or Romantic poet, he recounts tales of sleepless nights in bus shelters, a disused mill in Serbia, and his beloved tent, battered by the gales of Orkney. It made we want to canoe through the bayous of Louisiana, pray in the temples of Kyoto, and clamber over the clifftops of Cornwall. In showing how monsters are mirrors to our deepest fears, this is an erudite, surreal but also profound meditation on the human psyche.’

Richard Hamilton, author of The Last Storyteller

‘In this fascinating book, Nicholas Jubber ranges far and wide to answer one simple question — why do we create monsters? The answers he uncovers turn out not to be so simple. His first-hand research acknowledges that each culture is specific to itself. For instance, in Fez it is unlucky to shower after evening prayer, because it “disturbs the jinn in the drains”. The deft elegance of his prose makes the book mesmerisingly approachable. Learning worn lightly.’

Neil Philip, author of The Watkins Book of English Folktales

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Prepare yourself for a wild ride.’

The Times

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘His cornucopia of tellers and tales is a delight, a riveting celebration of a genre that revels in its own hybridity and the imaginative riches produced by the crossing of cultural and literary borders.’

Financial Times

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Engaging and interesting ... Jubber’s book shows the long-sustained value of these narratives, and should make us wonder what might happen to us if they disappeared from somewhere at the back of our brains.’

The Spectator

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Like a child after the Pied Piper I pursued Jubber into a world both human and full of magic. A carnival of a book, rigorously researched and jostling with life.’

Amy Jeffs, author of Storyland

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Wondrous. Jubber evokes hidden moments and atmospheres across the world, from smoke-filled dens to exquisite palaces, so beautifully that they will linger long in my memory. A treasure trove of a book.’

Zoe Gilbert, author of Folk

‘In this enchanting and fascinating exploration of monster stories around the globe, Jubber discovers not just the beasts themselves but people and places, history and imagination, fears and obsessions. He blends child-like joy with the wisdom of generations as he tackles giants, ghosts, zombies, and robots to reveal deep insights about past conflicts, collective trauma, and our changing relationship with the natural world. A magical yet deeply human journey that will haunt you long after the final page.’

Jo Marchant, author of The Human Cosmos

Monsters, in all their terrifying glory, have preoccupied humans since we began telling stories. But where did these stories come from?

In Monsterland, award-winning author Nicholas Jubber goes on a journey to discover more about the monsters we’ve invented, lurking in the dark and the wild places of the earth — giants, dragons, ogres, zombies, ghosts, demons — all with one thing in common: their ability to terrify.

His far-ranging adventure takes him across the world. He sits on the thrones of giants in Cornwall, visits the shrine of a beheaded ogre near Kyoto, travels to an eighteenth-century Balkan vampire’s forest dwelling, and paddles among the shapeshifters of the Louisiana bayous. On his travels, he discovers that the stories of the people and places that birthed them are just as fascinating as the creatures themselves.

Artfully written, Monsterland is a fascinating interrogation into why we need these monsters and what they can tell us about ourselves — how they bind communities together as much as they cruelly cast away outsiders.

‘As a collection of wonderfully creepy travels, Monsterland is both chillingly delicious and uncannily joyous.’

John Gimlette, author of Elephant Complex

Benedict Allen

View all reviews

Richard Hamilton, author of The Last Storyteller

Neil Philip, author of The Watkins Book of English Folktales

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Prepare yourself for a wild ride.’

The Times

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

Financial Times

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

The Spectator

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

‘Like a child after the Pied Piper I pursued Jubber into a world both human and full of magic. A carnival of a book, rigorously researched and jostling with life.’

Amy Jeffs, author of Storyland

Praise for The Fairy Tellers:

Zoe Gilbert, author of Folk

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 234mm × 153mm

Extent:352pp

ISBN (13):9781761380297

RRP:$37.99

Pub date:29 Apr 2025

Rights Held: World English

High-res cover:Download Image

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AUTHOR

Nicholas Jubber

Nicholas Jubber is an award-winning travel writer. Fascinated by history and its relationship with the present, he explores connections — and misconnections — across the centuries. In his book, The Fairy Tellers, this fascination carries him from Kashmir to Lapland to find out the history behind some of the world’s most beloved, and many long-forgotten, fairy tales. He has been shortlisted three times for the Stanford Dolman Award, and won it for his debut The Prester Quest. He has spoken at literary festivals including Hay-on-Wye and Edinburgh, and has written articles for The Guardian, The Telegraph, and The Irish Times, among others.

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Monsterland

a journey around the world’s dark imagination
Nicholas Jubber

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Multi-time winner of the Australian Small Publisher of the Year Award

Monsterland

a journey around the world’s dark imagination Nicholas Jubber

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a journey around the world’s dark imagination
Nicholas Jubber