THE ORIGINAL NOVEL

 

William Harrison Ainsworth’s, The Lancashire Witches, remains an educational tour de force that demonstrates how far European society and the Western World have moved since the days of the Pilgrim Fathers, as they contemplated starting a new life in the Americas.

 

The Lancashire Witches was novel of doomed young love, written as an adult fantasy and horror story by William Harrison Ainsworth, and first published in 1848. It has been in continuous print since then.

 

The novel is set in the violent world of seventeenth century England, when religious thought and raw superstition shared many beliefs. The novel evokes the ‘real world’ as imagined in this pre-Enlightenment period by princes, poets, and peasants: it was a world filled with ghouls, ghosts, boggarts, familiars, and other supernatural creatures, that acknowledged God or Satan as their lord.

 

It was also a world dominated by a small ruling class that owned most of the available land in England and demanded allegiance and obedience from those unfortunate enough to be born in their territories.

 

It was a world with a very limited idea of democracy, apart from the right of a small ruling class to exercise an influence on the power of the king and benefit from laws framed to underpin their privileges.

 

It was a world of deep religious convictions that encouraged hatred of anyone, or thing, that was not politically correct within the narrow religious parameters of the day.

 

It was also a world of gender stereotypes and sex discrimination, where women had to have very strong personalities to achieve any sort of independence.

 

And it was a world in which there was insufficient technology to raise the living standards of ordinary people above the subsistence level way of life in which most people were trapped.

 

The Lancashire Witches describes an unjust and cruel world, where disease and death were common, and the killing of people was often an occasion for celebration.

 

It was also a world where blood sports were enjoyed by all classes and for aristocrats, it was nearly a way of life.

 

 

THIS NEW EDITION

 

Gone are the dialogues in mock-Lancashire dialect that are unintelligible to people today, and only serve to belittle ordinary folk, as being ill-educated and rather foolish.

 

Gone is the Shakespearean and Biblical phraseology, assumed to be spoken by the educated and upper classes.

 

Gone are the long, cluttered descriptions, loved by the designers of Victorian drawing rooms crammed with ornate furniture, hangings, and bric-a-brac.

 

Gone are the worst examples of Victorian romanticism and their obsession with melancholy and the rituals of death.

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Leaving a timeless story told for the international reader, in easily understood modern English.

 

The story has been adapted to suit some modern sensitivities. For example, truth is no longer associated with beauty, or personal deformities with evil, and the end of the story accurately depicts the death of the real Lancashire witches.

 

Every effort has been made to keep what is timeless in Harrison Ainsworth’s dramatic story of witchcraft, where ghosts, ghouls and boggarts exist, and witches ride on broomsticks.

 

Harrison Ainsworth’s cliff-hanging plot is largely retained. Dynamic and incredibly humorous dialogues are now easy to read, with wonderful characters in the story that may now be even more unforgettable.

 

This remains a story of seventeenth century England, when there were older, stereotyped ideas, about race, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, and interpersonal relations, and about how one spoke to one another.

 

For further information, email Harry at houldken@gmail.com

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TO ORDER ON AMAZON:

Kindle edition -           £4.50  (Amazon reference - ASIN: BOCHRWDPYL)                     

Paperback edition - £12.99  (Amazon reference - ASIN: BOCJH7RKVW)

For direct sales from author, email Harry at houldken@gmail.com.