Witchcraft and Its Transformations, C.1650-c.1750

This book is about the significance of witchcraft in English public life (c.1650-c.1750), and deals with contemporary opinion regarding its theological, philosophical, and legal dimensions. Ian Bostridge discusses civil war politics, the writings of Thomas Hobbes, the debate about witchcraft at the time of the Glorious Revolution, and the disputes surrounding the repeal of Jacobean witchcraft legislation in 1736. He also examines the work of less familiar writers and propagandists such as Richard Boulton, Francis Hutchinson, and James Erskine of Grange, and balances this account of the gradual demise of witchcraft theory in England with a comparative case study of the debate in France.