Reading Witchcraft

by Marion Gibson

In this original study of witchcraft, Gibson explores the stories told by and about witches and their 'victims' through trial records, early news books, pamphlets and fascinating personal accounts. The author discusses the issues surrounding the interpretation of original historical sources and demonstrates that their representations of witchcraft are far from straight forward or reliable. Innovative and thought-provoking, this book sheds new light on early modern people's responses to witches and on the sometimes bizarre flexibility of the human imagination.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Witches, Witchcraft, Spirituality, Gender Studies, British Literature

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1999

Reviews

[Bryn Hammond · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even the drabbest of historical documents can't be read as if they are a transparent window, a direct look into the real past -- as if there is no writing being done; still less the self-consciously writerly pamphleteers. In this great little book, Gibson turns our eyes to the writerliness of our sources; it's a lesson in how to read them, with the tools of written arts.

I enjoyed her attention to the comic treatments of witchcraft (in pamphlets as on the stage) as not dismissable material but indication of another way Elizabethans and Jacobeans saw witchcraft: even as people were being hanged, witchcraft was also a subject for lampoon and jokes, triviality and frivolity. That's important to keep in mind.

[Ashley Owens · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting close analysis of Witchcraft Pamphlets.