Witchcraft and Its Transformations, c. 1650 - c. 1750 [Hardcover]

This is an original and important study of the significance of witchcraft in English public life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. In his lively account, Bostridge explores contemporary beliefs about witchcraft and shows how it remained a serious concern across the spectrum of political opinion. He concludes that its gradual descent into polite ridicule had as much to do with political developments as with the birth of reason.

A fresh and insightful inquiry into the last phase of the witchcraze in Britain....This book is a distinguished contribution to the current flurry of publications on the European witchcraze. --CHOICE

Stuart Clark'sThinking with Demonsis undoubtedly the most important work on the topic of witchcraft to come out of the British Isles since Sir Keith Thomas publishedReligion and the Decline of Magic(London, 1971)....in nearly seven hundred elegantly crafted pages, Stuart Clark has situated the topic of witchcraft as a significant integrative aspect of early modern European intellectual history. --Journal of Modern History

Ian Bostridgeis a young British tenor making his mark on the opera and concert stage. He sings full-time, but is also writing a book, provisionally entitled Being a Singer, to be published by Methuen in 1998.