Anna Jane Vardill (1781-1852), though primarily known in her lifetime as a poet, was actually the author of a significant amount of prose, using the signature "V." One of the most interesting of these ventures is a serial she published from January 1821 to June 1821 in The European Magazine titled The Secrets of -Cabalism. This series of six short stories, which the current volume brings together in book form for the first time, contains some of the earliest occult fiction written by a woman in the English language.

The brilliance and originality of these tales of alchemy and philosophy, adventure and natural magic, can be attested to by the fact that several of them have been reproduced and reprinted in various places, often uncredited or misattributed, the most noteworthy example of this being by the famous editor Peter Haining, who through six editions attributed one of the stories herein to William Child Green.