The Persistence of Witchcraft in Victorian England

This book is the first study to use a Digital Humanities methodology to examine witchcraft as represented in the Victorian press, which reveals new evidence about perceptions of witchcraft in 19th century England; witches were not simply participants in a court room drama but entangled with everyday life in Victorian Britain.

This book presents an alternative argument to the established opinion that witchcraft began to decline in the eighteenth century and that by the early twentieth century at the latest, it had largely ceased to exist. The idea that witchcraft disappeared from society is partially based on a historical emphasis upon legal action concerning alleged witches. When viewed through that lens alone, the evidence for a decline appears to be persuasive. This book, however, is the first study to use a Digital Humanities methodology to examine witchcraft as represented in the Victorian press, which reveals new evidence about perceptions of witchcraft in nineteenth-century England. An examination of nineteenth-century newspapers and periodicals demonstrates that witches featured extensively in the Victorian press, appearing in articles, commentaries, reports of lectures and meetings, advertisements, book and theatrical reviews, literature, and poetry. As a result, witches were not simply participants in a courtroom drama (although they also continued to appear in that way), they had a vibrant and visible presence across a broad range of activities and were thoroughly entangled with everyday life in Victorian Britain. This broad range of topics makes the book useful to all levels of academics, as well as non-specialist readers who will find its remarkable discoveries to be of interest.