The Persistence of Witchcraft in Victorian England (Routledge Studies in Modern British History)

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.