Sale on Amazon US of course - sorry anyone who doesn't get those prices due to border annoyances. And since these are from the past three weeks, some might no longer be on sale - the Lancashire Witches isn't, sorry, I would add that first!

 

Usually I'd copy/paste the names into the text area but I am feeling SO lazy (not to mention currently having little free time, sigh) that I'm just gonna whap them into the "add book" area.

 

Also I totally realize I was only recently grumbling about having to remove unread books to free up ereader space so yes, here we go, I again add to my problem. Heh, such fun that no one can actually see how many TBR are on my virtual shelf! Er, unless I share them in here of course.

 

Hmm, only just now realized that I bought two military themed books and military history usually isn't my thing. Both were recommended to me by others though, so there's that.

The link that alerted me to this anniversary is via Instagram, because it's more than just people sharing baby and lunch photos. (I'm following mostly museums, libraries and bookstores.)

 

So thanks to this image from The British Museum, I can share that the Pendleton Witch trials were held August 18 to 19, 1612. And later in 1849 William Harrison Ainsworth wrote a book incorporating the witches into his novel The Lancashire Witches. A novel that's never been out of print. After seeing that fact in countless books on the Victorian novel I decided to peek into the book online - and that's why it's on my currently reading list. I've decided to let myself pick up/put down that book as I feel like reading - it's on my ereader after all, and always with me, so no rush. (I haven't been a student for a decade or so, but I still love reading without a deadline.)

 

In the US we get fixated on the Salem witch trials (1692 - 1693ish) - well, because we tend to fixate on our own history - and lump all the European ones into "those trials over there." But the Pendleton witches also have an interesting backstory, and are a great parallel to Salem, especially in current day tourism.

 

I'll not bother to sum up - just direct you to the wikipedia: Pendle Witches

And note that links at the end are to Gutenberg - even the 1613 account by the court clerk called The Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches in the Countie of Lancaster.

 

[I've seen both Pendle and Pendleton witches. And still am not sure which is correct.]

[Also I restrained myself from a which and witch pun there.]

[Though not entirely restrained, because I had to mention it.]

 

Every now and then something I'm reading will cite an author, who'll cite another book, who'll cite yet something else - and then I end up reading about William Harrison Ainsworth. A law clerk turned author, Ainsworth wrote 39 books between 1834 and 1881, and did various work for magazines, including his own (Ainsworth's Magazine, not a huge creative leap in naming). He and Dickens were friends, and he managed to bump into to many other well known authors and illustrators of the period. So it's never a surprise when his name or works pop up. Then I'll find myself thinking that I really should get around to reading at least one of his books, I'll download an ebook or two, and then I'll move on and forget him. Again.

 

A few days ago I found myself, after a series of links, on this Internet Archive page, flipping through the pages of The Life and Adventures of Mervyn Clitheroe, a name I couldn't help snickering over. (Amazingly Mervyn Clitheroe doesn't even have its own wikipedia page, so no plot summary. Let us all pity poor Mervyn.)

 

Mervyn Clitheroe (1898)

 

If you take a look at that page you'll understand why I went to the enlarged version and took a closer look - the illustrations are interesting. And then I read the beginning, with a child, a dying mother, an absent father, and - no, no no, stop, not getting hooked into this one - let me see how many pages this thing goes on for....there we go, 400 some pages, nope not picking that up. I know I have one of his books at least already on my ereader. ...There we go, The Lancashire Witches. I'll read some of that!

 

That was a big mistake - or at least it was a mistake to start it without doing research. While I was right that Lancashire Witches was considered one of Ainsworth's better books, the fuzzy part of my memory felt that it wasn't terribly long, so it should be a quick read. Wrong! 635 pages. When I stopped after a large chunk of action had happened I realized that I was just finishing the prologue, which Ainsworth explains is just background to the story he's about to begin. And only then did I think "I wonder how many pages?"

 

You have to be careful with Victorian writers, especially ones who published their work to be serialized in magazines - they will take a plot and go on and on with it forever. Or at least it can feel like forever, especially when you're in a portion that feels suspiciously like filler.

 

What's funny is that if I had realized it wasn't a short work I'd have probably started Jack Sheppard, a novel about a historical criminal - or perhaps Rookwood, in which highwayman Dick Turpin plays a part. Both of those books belong to a category called Newgate Novels, which were basically true crime of the 1820s through 1840s. Most of them are easily available thanks to Gutenberg, which is why Ainsworth's been on my to read list for so long. And if I'd just done a quick check I'd have discovered that Jack Sheppard's Amazon ebook is only 410pgs. Sigh.

 

So here's the problem. I've now started Lancashire Witches - I give in, there's no point in arguing about it (though that's what I've been doing) - the question is whether I'll keep going. And since I'm a couple of chapters from finishing off a Dickens book I should just admit it to the Current Reads stack. The only problem is that the Dickens book was playing a particular role: The Book I'm Reading To Fall Asleep To, Which Means I Can't Actually Find It In Any Way Suspenseful Plotwise. The Lancashire Witches has already had rebellious priests, a warlock with a black dog, a flood, a baby under a curse, imprisonment and escape, a demon, death by falling statue, and several hangings. And that was just the prologue. So I'll give it a try, but I have a feeling it won't really be good reading to fall asleep to. Unless there's a long discussion of politics every so often. But hey, there will be witches to discuss.

 

If you're interested in more information, here's a fun article (with cited sources) that will explain what I've been burbling about with greater (more instructive) detail:

 

William Harrison Ainsworth: The Life and Adventures of the Lancashire Novelist

by Stephen Carver, AinsworthAndFriends.com, 1/16/2013

(This was actually published but in another language, so I'm wildly pleased that Carver decided to post it online. I will be gleefully rummaging around in the Works Cited to see if it will lead me to other books.)

 

Meanwhile someone needs to come up with an easier way to tell the length of an ebook on an ereader other than actually opening up the thing.

[These notes were made in 1984. I read this title in the undated but definitely 19th-century "Edition de Luxe" published by G.H. Howell:]. From the frequency with which I see its title, I think this must have been one of Ainsworth's more popular works, and indeed, in terms of a working narrative, it's one of his better ones. The nineteenth-century scholar/historian tone is nearly gone (he pops up sometimes, but he doesn't do a travelogue), and the novel is based on the assumption that witchcraft did exist in fact, and that the elder heroine, Alice Nutter, had sold herself to the devil. As usual with WHA, we are firmly located in place and time; the whole is located in the area of Lancashire near Preston; the opening section is set in the 1536 uprising when Henry VIII dismantled the monasteries, and the rest of the story takes place several generations later in the reign of James VI & I, who was, of course, very interested in witchcraft, and who duly makes his appearance in the last book. No-one lives happily ever after in this rather dismal story. Young Richard is done to death by witchcraft, and Alizon quite properly follows him to the grave. Mistress Nutter, the repentant witch, providentially expires (of grief, of strain?) on her way to the stake. And, of course, the baddies get it - Mother Demdike and Mother Chattox in particular have a spectacular taking-off in a fire on a Lancashire hill. No, the shibboleth is here the saving or losing of souls, and within that rigid framework, the Abbot of Whalley, whose curse sets everything in motion, and who reappears as a ghost, sits uneasily to say the least. The old problem of mixing folk-superstition with theology again. But I did rather enjoy this one.