Witchcraft, Magic and Culture 1736-1951 (Manchester University Press, 1999)
For the first time, this book traces the history of witchcraft and magic from 1736 to the year 1951, when the passing of the Fraudulent Mediums Act finally erased the concept of witchcraft from the statute books. The reader will discover the extent to which witchcraft, magic and fortune-telling influenced the thoughts and actions of the people of England and Wales in a period when the forces of 'progress' are often thought to have vanquished such beliefs.

The book begins by exploring the subject from 'above', examining how changing educated attitudes influenced and were influenced by the continued popular belief in witchcraft and magic.

Subsequent chapters consider the ways in which the witch-believing population coped with the threat of witchcraft once there was no longer any legal redress, and examine how accusations of witchcraft formed during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The way that witchcraft and magic were represented in popular literature and oral tradition is explored, and the influence of cunning-folk, astrologers and fortune-tellers in both rural and urban society is highlighted. This study will appeal to anyone with a general interest in cultural history or the history of the occult.

Contents:
Educated attitudes towards the popular belief in witchcraft and magic
The denial of witchcraft and the defence of property
Witchcraft: an anachronism in the 'Age of Enlightenment'
Continuing religious interest in witchcraft Possession, religion and spiritualism
Witchcraft and insanity Reforming the popular mind
The legal debate over the Witchcraft and Vagrancy Acts
Witchcraft and Popular Justice
The decline of witchcraft prosecutions
Authority's role in the persecution and prosecution of witches
Swimming: the popular adoption of a continental practice
The continued resort to figures of authority and their response
Witch-mobbing as an act of folk justice
Witch-mobbing, the parish constable and the coming of the new police
Witchcraft, magic and popular literature
Literacy and literature
Broadsides
Chapbooks
Prophecy
The witch and the Devil Almanacs
Anti-superstition literature
The Witch
Witches, folklore and belief
Characteristics of the archetypal witch
Fairies, flying and shape-shifting
The witch in court
Origins of accusations
Bewitchment and social space
Occult practitioners
Cunning-folk
Astrologers
Astrologers of London
Fortune-tellers
The reinvention of fortune-telling
Gypsies
Fortune-telling and the First World War
Declining belief in witchcraft
Measuring declining belief
Cultural change and the retiring witch
Concluding remarks