- Hardcover: 416 pages
- Publisher: Fourth Estate; 1st Edition edition (2 April 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 1841151092
- ISBN-13: 978-1841151090
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 16 x 4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 564,337 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
| |||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Visit the Amazon.co.uk Trade-In Store for more details. |
Product details |
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
'Nothing can disguise the strength of the material on display, or the sense of a great swathe of early 20th century mental life brought out into sharp but by no means unsympathetic modern light'. D.J. Taylor, SUNDAY TIMES 'A fascinating account' Lesley McDowell, INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY 'Malcolm Gaskill has researched the whole story of Helen Duncan's life with extreme thoroughness; his account sparkles with dry humour, but is not without sympathy too. Its main value -- apart from!sheer entertainment-value -- lies in the light it shines on the social phenomenon of spiritualism in early 20th-century Britain' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Comprehensive and scholarly, and also extremely readable, being full of trenchant phrases and vivid analogies. It is balanced, fair and a salutary reminder, in our secularised society, that belief in the supernatural is still endemic.' LITERARY REVIEW
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
The 1735 Witchcraft Act was used for the last time in Portsmouth in 1944. The accused was Helen Duncan, a plump Scotswoman, convicted as a fraud yet believed by hundreds to possess the power to speak to the dead. This is her extraordinary story.
Helen Duncan was born in Callander in 1898 and developed mysterious powers during the First World War, when she correctly predicted the guise of the soldier she would marry. Having refined these powers she became increasingly celebrated following her own near death from pneumonia when she was informed of her vocation by a shadowy white figure. She went on to produce spirit forms from ectoplasm that, she said, flowed through her. She was accompanied by a spirit guide named Albert and a young girl spirit named Peggy. Or was she? The Psychic community was divided in two fiercely opposing camps – followers and sceptics. The government of the day got involved (Churchill was said to be more than a little interested) when, during WW2 Helen appeared able to tell relatives of the deaths of their loved ones even before offical announcements had been made. And so in 1944, absurdly, anachronistically, she was charged with witchcraft, prosecuted and jailed for the duration of the war. Her life is an amazing glimpse into the spritiual and psychological mood of the times, a story of bathos and absurdity, of credulity and cruelty, and of England’s last witch.
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organise and find favourite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
|
Share your thoughts with other customers:
|
||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Well researched, well written and challenging,
By
This review is from: Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches (Paperback)
Gaskill's stated aims are to neither "exonerate" Helen Duncan nor to "crusade against superstition" and hopes to "vanish in the presence of my subject"... and I guess he achieves this. This is a superbly well researched book in which Gaskill's scholarship shines through whilst his own voice remains almost inaudible over that of the Duncan family and her very many enthusiastic supporters in their testimony of Helen's mediumship on the one hand, and that of her more dissatisfied sitters and psychical researchers on the other. Moreover his well paced and engaging narrative style grips and retains the reader's interest to the very end. He even manages to deftly lead us through the legal complexities and absurdities without the natural dryness of the topic area.However, this was a hard book for me to read, jarring as it does with so many more sympathetic accounts of Helen's life and work that I, like other spiritualist readers, am more familiar with. Just how does one reconcile the extremes of testimony Gaskill lays before us? Even the photographs alternate between the convincing to the blatantly mock up. Could the same woman who brought back loved ones to converse is so many languages other than English, who at 20+ stone performed feats of escapology with spirit help, be the same who purportedly cheated so transparently? Was she, as Price suggested, a regurgitator rather than a medium or was she the victim of a deliberate attempt by this embittered man to discredit her? Was she a genuine medium who occasionally cheated because of her or her husbands material needs? Was she the victim of deeper war time conspiracy or state paranoia? Just why were MI5 so interested? But then Gaskill never set out to help us out with any of these questions in the first place. He does nevertheless raise them, hint at the possible motives of the central players in relation to them, and then leave them hanging in the air. Perhaps I feel irritated only because I'd like answers that maybe only God, Albert and Helen will ever be privy to. Gaskill brilliantly explores through Helen's story the significance of spirituality, beliefs and our understanding of our place in the universe during the turbulent first half of the 20th Century but perhaps does not explore deeply enough the connection between the adverse personal views of Helen as 'fat' a 'drinker' and 'rude' in light of patriarchal views of women at the time. I am sure that her family and friends would offer a more loving image to counterbalance this here.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Spiritualism and the Witchcraft Act,
This review is from: Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches (Paperback)
Witchcraft is often dismissed as a phenomenon of earlier, more superstitious times, yet the last prosecution under the 1735 Witchcraft Act occurred in 1944, in Portsmouth. Its subject was one Helen Duncan, a hard drinking, chainsmoking Scots woman who had built up a reputation as a medium whose theatrical performances seemed to raise the very dead.Duncan came to the attention of the authorities after she apparently conjured up the spirit of a young sailor who had just died aboard the battleship Barham. As the Admiralty had not yet admitted the loss of this ship, there was some unseemly haste in ensuring the news was covered up and Duncan silenced. Malcolm Gaskill delivers more than a biography of Helen Duncan. This is not an evaluation of her sincerity or fraudulent intent. Rather, it is an exploration of the world of spiritualism and why it became such a force in the inter-War period.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Truth-is-stranger-than-fiction fascinating biography,
By A Customer
This review is from: Hellish Nell: the Last of Britain's Witches (Hardcover)
I don't normally go for biographies, but the subject matter and background of this book reeled me in. It's more than a biography really, it's a great story that captures your interest until the very end. It's got the supernatural element, human interest and wartime battleships - it's the kind of thing that Hollywood script-writers couldn't dream up. I really enjoyed reading it and have recommended it to all my friends.
Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Would you like to see more reviews about this item?
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews |
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
- Books > Biography > Historical > Britain > Military
- Books > Biography > Historical > Countries & Regions > Europe
- Books > Biography > Political > Britain
- Books > Biography > Religious
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Ireland
- Books > History > Britain & Ireland > Queen Anne, Georgian, Victorian 1701-1901
- Books > History > Other Historical Subjects > Witchcraft
- Books > Mind, Body & Spirit > Earth Based Religions > Witchcraft & Wicca
- Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Earth-Based Religions > Wicca
- Books > Religion & Spirituality > New Age > Occult > Spiritualism
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
