Witch, Warlock, and Magician

by Adams, W. H. Davenport

• ISBN13: 9781108044431
• ISBN10: 1108044433
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2012-02-16
• Publisher: Cambridge Univ Pr

Summary

The journalist and author W. H. Davenport Adams (1828-91) established a reputation for himself as a popular science writer, translator and lexicographer. He also wrote several children's books. In this 1889 work, Adams gives a general introduction to alchemy in Europe and traces the development of magic and alchemy in England from the fourteenth century onwards. Initially the disciplines were persecuted by the Church and met with 'the prejudice of the vulgar', languishing throughout the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In Book 1 Adams portrays the English 'magicians' Roger Bacon, whom he considers to have been ahead of his contemporaries; John Dee and William Lilly, astrologists of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, respectively; and the English Rosicrucians. Book 2 is a historical account of witchcraft in England and Scotland, from the middle ages to the witch trials of the seventeenth century, and includes a chapter on witchcraft in literature.

Table of Contents

Preface

Introduction: progress of alchemy in Europe

The English Magicians

Roger Bacon: the true and the legendary

The story of Dr. John Dee

Dr. Dee's diary

Magic and imposture: a couple of knaves

The last of the English magicians: William Lilly

English Rosicrucians

Witches and Witchcraft

Early history of witchcraft in England

Witchcraft in England in the seventeenth century

The decline of witchcraft in England

The witches of Scotland

The literature of witchcraft

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.