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Libra Esoterica

The Lancashire Witches, a Romance of Pendle Forest

a romance of Pendle Forest. In three volumes

by William Harrison Ainsworth & John Gilbert (Illustrator)

  • First published:
  • 19th century
  • Languages: English, German
  • Content type: Fiction
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Description

Description from Open Library (opens in a new tab)

The Lancashire Witches begins in the 16th century, in Lancashire, England. When a Cistercian monk, Borlace Alvetham, is falsely accused of witchcraft and condemned to death by his rival, Brother Paslew, he sells his soul to Satan and escapes. Years later, granted the powers of a warlock, he returns in the guise of Nicholas Demdike to witness Paslew's execution for treason. Dying, Paslew curses Demdike's offspring -- who become the titular 'Lancashire Witches.' The rest of the book set in the 17th century. Mother Demdike, a powerful witch, and her clan face rival witches, raise innocent young Alizon Devi as their own, and try to corrupt Alizon despite her innocent ways. Ultimately, the book becomes a struggle between Heaven and Hell, with Alizon's fate hanging in the balance. Ainsworth's last masterpiece, The Lancashire Witches proved a best-seller in its day and influenced many contemporary authors.

Provenance

Why this book is in the catalog

Included because retained bibliographic metadata links this work to Occultism and esotericism and Witchcraft and folk magic.

  • Occultism and esotericism

    Controlled discovery queries from openlibrary-historical matched “Occultism”. Retained metadata contains “occult” in the subject metadata and “supernatural” in the subject metadata.

    • “Occultism”· via Open Library
    • “occult”· in subject
    • “supernatural”· in subject
  • Witchcraft and folk magic

    Controlled discovery queries from openlibrary-historical and project-gutenberg matched “Witchcraft” and “witches”. Retained metadata contains “witches” in the title, “Witchcraft” in the description, “witches” in the description, and 3 additional metadata match(es).

    • “Witchcraft”· via Open Library
    • “witches”· via Project Gutenberg
    • “witches”· in title
    • “Witchcraft”· in description
    • “witches”· in description
    • “Witchcraft”· in subject

Membership records how this book met the catalog’s discovery criteria — relevance to a tradition, not a judgment of the book’s claims.

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Editions

Open Library reports 115 editions; 2 cataloged here.

The Lancashire witches

1849Henry Colburn, publisher, Great Marlborough StreetEnglish—Public

Project Gutenberg electronic edition

Project Gutenberg metadata does not identify the source print edition.

2005-03-29Project GutenbergEnglish—Public domain (USA)

Subjects

14 subject headings

Identifiers & provenance

How this record was assembled, and the authority identifiers it carries.

Identifiers

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ISBN-10
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Open Library work
Project Gutenberg
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Cataloging notes

  • Open Library reports 115 editions; this snapshot catalogs one representative edition and preserves work-level ISBN, date, and publisher aggregates.
  • Original print publication date and source edition are absent from Project Gutenberg metadata.
Catalog id
openlibrary-work:OL5201557W
Edition coverage
Multi source partial
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