Secret Society Histories

TGS has reprinted How's first edition of 1862 and his third edition of 1881. The 1881 Edition is more accurate and further edited. However, as with most subsequent editions of any book, the first edition captures the author's passion for his topic, many times lost in further editing.

A book of the 'real' craft of masonry..,

The question is often asked, How old is Masonry and where did it begin? The answer must depend entirely on one's definition of the word. If by that term one means a Freemason in the modern sense, who is a member of a subordinate lodge operating under the authority of a Grand Lodge and practising the rites of Symbolical Masonry, then Freemasonry came into existence in London in 1717.

Masonic traditions traced back to the beginning of time. - Illustrations of theFive Grand Periods of Freemasonry from the Creation of the World to the Dedication of King Solomon's Temple

Account of the Rites and Ceremonies,Doctrines & Disciplines,of All the Secret and Mysterious >
Institutions of the Ancient World -- Rare look into the rites of initiation, the origin, meaning, symbolism, and history.

I will as substantially establish, that they were, what has already been affirmed, in reference to those in Ireland, viz. temples in honour of the sun and moon, the procreative causes of general fecundity, comprising in certain instances, like them, also the additional and blended purposes of funeral cemeteries and astronomical observatories.