This powerful novel foregrounds the violent misogyny behind 16th-century accusations of witchcraft in Huntingdonshire. In recent years, female writers have found their imaginations energised by the figure of the witch. Standouts include AK Blakemore’s The Manningtree Witches, which won the 2021 Desmond Elliott prize, and Elle McNicoll’s children’s novel, A Kind of Spark. Evie Wyld’s The Bass… Continue reading…
Jill Dawson’s The Bewitching, with its compelling story and imaginative reconstruction of past beliefs, is set in lateElizabethan Huntingdonshire. A truculent old woman, Alice Samuel, arouses suspicions that she is responsible for sudden seizures experienced by the daughters of the local squire, Robert Throckmorton. The Throckmorton household itself, seen through the eyes of the narrator… Continue reading…
A vivid retelling…From the first farcical accusation to the novel’s tragic denouement, the plot unfolds with the unrelenting pace of a psychological thriller. For the reader, Alice’s innocence is never in question, but the novel ably portrays the web of misogyny, fear and religious convictions that made her guilt seem credible at the time. A… Continue reading…
If it’s voice as a narrative tool that you’re after, there aren’t many better contemporary practitioners than Jill Dawson. Over nine previous novels, although distinct and varied in subject, certain preferences have emerged in several of them: an historical setting; a protagonist drawn from reality; and a distinctive narrative voice that flavours the story while… Continue reading…
‘Witch-hunt’ has become a handy metaphor for online persecutions, especially of women, though these days it is reputations that go up in flames rather than bodies. The mob mentality behind the phenomenon may not have changed as much as the medium or the mindset. In retelling a celebrated case from Elizabethan England, Jill Dawson enters… Continue reading…
The Bewitching takes us back to 16th century Cambridgeshire, exploring the true story of the Witches of Warboys. Largely told from the perspective of one of the servants in the home of the local squire, Martha – deaf in one ear, yet more observant than anyone around her – watches on with increasing confusion, sympathy… Continue reading…
Jill Dawson’s novels are often set in the Fens, often based on true stories and often written with a clear feminist purpose. And yet, they’re also astonishingly varied. Her last book, The Language of Birds, for example, turned the nanny murdered by Lord Lucan in 1974 from a historical footnote into a warm and vivid human being (from the Fens). Now,… Continue reading…
‘The Bewitching – Based on an actual witchcraft trial in an English village in the 16th century, this finely crafted novel explores the contagiousness of malicious rumours. Poor, stroppy, beer-tippling Alice, demonised for being outspoken, is a timeless female archetype, rendered with great skill by Dawson. There is a grim inevitability about her fate, as… Continue reading…
‘Alice Samuel is an old, occasionally cantankerous woman who looks uncomfortably witch-like. A new squire, Robert Throckmorton, has come to reside in her Fenland village with his brood of children, including the oddball Johanne and Jane, who suffers from fits. When Alice calls on the family, Jane is overcome, and the old woman is soon… Continue reading…
‘Set in the richly atmospheric surrounds of the author’s fenland home, the acclaimed Dawson’s historical latest draws on actual events to close the distance between the witch hunts of 16th century and our own era of conspiracy theories, flagrant abuses of power, and MeToo. Our narrator is thirty-something Martha, loyal and long-term servant of the… Continue reading…