Summary: A. Roger Ekirch’s book offers a vivid and unsettling portrait of life after dark before the modern era. The historian A. Roger Ekirch’s book At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past provides a fascinating window into our ancestors’ world. Jonathan Swift advised servants to never light candles “until half an hour after it be dark” to avoid facing wrath. Still, despite such drawbacks, even aristocratic households depended upon them for rudimentary needs,” as wax candles were so expensive. “Rarely did preindustrial folk pause to ponder the beauty of day’s departure.” Instead, most surviving descriptions of sundown were characterized by anxiety.