Raising Spirits: How a Conjuror's Tale Was Transmitted Across the Enlightenment

Despite supernatural scepticism, stories about spirits were regularly printed and shared throughout the 18th and 19th centuries. This case-study in the transmission of a single story (of a young gunsmith near Bristol conjuring spirits, leading to his early death) reveals both how and why successive generations found meaning in such accounts.

Author: J. Barry
Publisher: Palgrave Pivot
Published: 11/19/2013
Pages: 146
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 0.77lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.50w x 0.50d
ISBN: 9781137378934

About the Author

Jonathan Barry is Professor of Early Modern History and a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator in medical humanities at Exeter University, UK. He has published widely in urban, social, cultural, religious and medical history, including Witchcraft and Demonology in South-West England 1640-1789 (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and edited many books including Witchcraft in Early Modern Europe (1996) and (with Owen Davies) Palgrave Advances in Witchcraft Historiography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).