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mbod's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
informative
reflective
sad
slow-paced
3.25
Content Warnings
Moderate: Animal death, Child death, and Death
Minor: Torture
edbasham123's review against another edition
3.0
Witchfinders is a non-fiction account of the tragic events that took place in the east of England in the 1640s. It follows the lives of Matthew Hopkins and John Stearne, the duo responsible for nearly 300 executions of men and women that they believed to be practicing witchcraft.
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I am very interested in gothic and macabre history which first caused me to pick up this book in a little bookshop in York. This topic is also very close to home as I live in Colchester where Hopkins and Stearne ran their operations (they used Colchester castle as a prison). I couldn’t wait to read this book.
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It’s fair to say that Gaskill has done his research on this topic and the 60 page bibliography at the end of the book is what I expected from a fellow of Cambridge university. The topic was very interesting although the book is very in-depth, which perhaps put me off a little. I came into this book expecting a brief overview of Hopkins’ life and his witchfinding activities, however what I was presented with was a very in-depth account of Hopkins’ life and not too much detail on the actual witchfinding.
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This book would be great if you were studying history and wanted a full account of witchfinding in Essex, however it’s not too great for amateur history buffs who want a brief and captivating account of the above. This book gets 2.5 stars, 2 stars for the content and half a star for the impressive bibliography. I guess I’m just more of a documentary kind of person, sorry.
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I am very interested in gothic and macabre history which first caused me to pick up this book in a little bookshop in York. This topic is also very close to home as I live in Colchester where Hopkins and Stearne ran their operations (they used Colchester castle as a prison). I couldn’t wait to read this book.
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It’s fair to say that Gaskill has done his research on this topic and the 60 page bibliography at the end of the book is what I expected from a fellow of Cambridge university. The topic was very interesting although the book is very in-depth, which perhaps put me off a little. I came into this book expecting a brief overview of Hopkins’ life and his witchfinding activities, however what I was presented with was a very in-depth account of Hopkins’ life and not too much detail on the actual witchfinding.
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This book would be great if you were studying history and wanted a full account of witchfinding in Essex, however it’s not too great for amateur history buffs who want a brief and captivating account of the above. This book gets 2.5 stars, 2 stars for the content and half a star for the impressive bibliography. I guess I’m just more of a documentary kind of person, sorry.
eleanoralice's review
It was VERY repetitive, maybe it changed during the second half but I could not bring myself to read that far.
christylouise's review
informative
sad
slow-paced
3.0
This book is very educational, however it does at times read like a long list of examples. Gaskell also offers very little sympathy to the women involved in this horrific historical event.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death
rosekk's review against another edition
3.0
The book proved an informative read, though I can't help but think the book would not have suffered at all if it was half the length. It gives specific detail of almost every witch-hunt and confession recorded in the era, but since many of them were functionally identical it would have been enough just to give a broader description than to repetitively go into details of each event. The book did provide an education in how witchcraft was viewed at the time (it surprised me to learn that although those hanged as witches were predominantly female, there were a large portion of men accused as well). The book also made a point of connecting the witch hunt with other contemporary events in order to make some sense of it as a phenomena connected with other events. In all the book was worth a read, but needed to be pared down a bit as the more intriguing points were lost a little in all the superfluous detail.
opalleaves's review
I literally read 120 pages of just complete repetition, it wasn’t remotely coherent and was just really hard to follow. This is an area of history I find fascinating and I’m no stranger to non-fiction but this was just so hard to read (and boring) I just couldn’t do it. Might try and pick it up again one day