Title; Contents; Preface; Chapter I -- The Beginnings of English Witchcraft; Chapter II -- Witchcraft Under Elizabeth; Chapter III -- Reginald Scot; Chapter IV -- The Exorcists; Chapter V -- James I and Witchcraft; Chapter VI -- Notable Jacobean Cases; Chapter VII -- The Lancashire Witches and Charles I; Chapter VIII -- Matthew Hopkins; Chapter IX -- Witchcraft During the Commonwealth and Protectorate; Chapter X -- The Literature of Witchcraft from 1603 to 1660; Chapter XI -- Witchcraft Under Charles II and James II; Chapter XII -- Glanvill and Webster and the Literary War over Witchcraft, 1660-1688.
Chapter XIII -- The Final DeclineChapter XIV -- The Close of the Literary Controversy; Appendices; Endnotes.
Summary
Many historical treatments of witchcraft tend to be somewhat sensationalistic and cartoonish. Not so with Wallace Notestein's measured, intellectual take on the subject in A History of Witchcraft in England, which offers not only a thorough historical narrative, but also puts the practice into social and political context.