"Llewellyn announces the exciting re-release of what many consider to be the authentic holy book of Wicca. During the time of the persecutions, it was handed down by word of mouth to new initiates. When Lady Sheba was initiated into her first coven, she hand-copied The Book of Shadows and in 1971 became the first to publish it in the U.S. The same year she registered "The American Order of the Brotherhood of Wicca" as a legally recognized religion in the state of Michigan."