Under the Spell
of the Northern Lights

Alaska. Always on the brink of myth.

Under the Spell of the Northern Lights brings together voices from Alaska’s vast and unforgiving landscape — Indigenous myths passed down across millennia, frontier poems forged in the Arctic cold, and firsthand accounts of those who ventured north in search of gold and were forever changed.

Here are tales of Raven, the creator and trickster, prospectors who sought fortune in frozen ground, and naturalists who found their treasure in the wild itself. The aurora borealis shimmering over it all. From the Tlingit, Haida, Eskimo, Athapascan, Tsetsaut, and Tsimshian peoples to the poets, wanderers, and explorers who came north, this collection offers an immersion in a land that tests all who enter.

Part of the Brown Paper Library: A series of themed anthologies drawn entirely from the public domain. Each volume gathers a range of forms — short stories, poetry, fables, myths, plays, journal entries, and more — around a single unexpected idea. Curated for readers who love to be surprised by what they find.