Excerpt from The Secret Societies of All Ages and Countries, Vol. 1 of 2: A Comprehensive Account of Upwards of One Hundred and Sixty Secret Organisations, Religious, Political, and Social, From the Most Remote Ages Down to the Present Time This is not so much a second edition of my book on Secret Societies published in 1875 as an almost entirely new work. When the first edition was published, some of the societies had scarcely any history. Of the Nihilists, for instance, the account now given, recording their doings within the last eighteen years, fills many pages of this work. The story of other societies, active even then, such as the Fenians, had to be brought down to date, and yielded much new matter. I have thought it desirable to give fuller particulars of certain societies than I had given in the first edition, such as the Jesuits, for instance - the new matter having either been kept back, or being the result of further research. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.