Category Archives: Witchcraft

The Lancashire Witches

25 Monday Jan 2010

Posted by in Books, Fiction, History, Witchcraft

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Original artwork by John Gilbert

William Harrison Ainsworth (1805-1882) was a historical novelist and one of the most popular English authors of the later 19th century. Born in Manchester, he trained as a lawyer and practised in London, but his true ambitions were always literary. In his youth, Ainsworth read adventure stories and was an admirer of Dick Turpin, the highwayman whose exploits were the subject of popular legend. The tale of Turpin’s overnight ride from London to York on his steed, Black Bess, featured in Ainsworth’s first novel, Rookwood (1834.)

Among Ainsworth’s nearly forty novels, several were set in his native Lancashire, including his most famous work, The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest (1848.) Continue reading →

HerStoria

12 Saturday Sep 2009

Posted by in Brighton, History, Periodicals, Witchcraft

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herstoria

HerStoria is a new quarterly magazine, launched in Liverpool this February.  Its byline is ‘history that puts women in their place’. Women’s role in history has sometimes been overlooked, though the same could also be said for other groups such as the working class and non-whites. Focussing on their stories helps us to understand the past as experienced by society at large, and not only through the narrow perspective of ruling elites. Continue reading →

The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy

27 Thursday Mar 2008

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The Lancashire Witch Conspiracy is a remarkable new book by John A. Clayton, focusing on the Pendle Witch Trials of 1612. He has undertaken extensive research to achieve what seemed impossible, bringing valuable new evidence to light. It was the largest witch trial in England at that time, surpassed only by Matthew Hopkins’ reign of terror as the Witchfinder General nearly four decades later. Continue reading →

Lois The Witch

09 Sunday Mar 2008

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I studied Elizabeth Gaskell’s North And South for my English Literature A Level, without much enthusiasm. Nearly 20 years later, I’ve taken a look at Mrs Gaskell’s other work. She also wrote a number of short stories in the gothic genre, seemingly a world away from her more familiar social realism. Continue reading →