Book Review: Something Wicked: The Lives, Deaths and Crimes of the Pendle Witches by Carol Ann Lee
Published January 2025 by Bonnier Books
Print length 416 pages
Nonfiction. History/witchcraft.
In Lancashire in 1612, ten people were executed for the crime of witchcraft. Our understanding of these Pendle witches has been shaped by a biased, possibly inaccurate historical source, and then further obscured by fiction and popular culture. Author Carol Ann Lee offers a close analysis of the main historical source for the trials, Thomas Pott’s pamphlet Wonderfull Discoverie of Witches, highlighting signs of material being altered, removed or recounted out of chronological order. While questioning the source and its reliability, she seeks to uncover what happened in Lancashire that lead to the execution of ten people, and who those Pendle witches really were.
Carol Anne Lee had written extensively in the true crime genre, and has brought her experience of criminal analysis to the fore. While drawing on contemporary sources about the trial, and examining the current historical understanding of the events at Lancashire, she has sought a new perspective and insight. Questioning the original material, investigating the accepted narrative and seeking deeper understanding has lead to a detailed and insightful book that lays bare the Pendle witch trials of 1612.
To understand the Pendle witch trial of 1612, Carol Ann Lee has carefully unraveled the complex and interwoven relationships between those accused of witchcraft in this trial. The book begins with family trees and a bewildering dramatis personae. The tangled connections between the two families at the heart of the Pendle trial, the Southerns-Device family and the Whittle-Redfearn family, are carefully teased out for the reader. Both families, once allies turned rivals, were headed by cunning women known for their magical services to local people. Lee illustrates the way that families intertwined in a period where folks were interdependent on one another for survival in harsh and tumultuous times
Something Wicked: The Lives, Deaths and Crime of the Pendle Witches gives portraits of all of the accused, presenting them as individuals, lifting them from the role of fictionalised monsters or grotesqueries to distinct people, with their own identities, struggles and sense of self. She offers insight into the daily life of the rural poor in the period, especially women. She explores the motivations of those accused of witchcraft, why they confessed, accused and incriminated others.
As someone who had only passing knowledge of the Pendle trial of 1612, I found Something Wicked to be fascinating and highly detailed. The lives of the Pendle witches were meticulously researched and explored. Avoiding sensationalism and the repetition of past assumptions, Something Wicked is a clear eyed examination of the Pendle witch trial and the events that lead to the execution of ten people for witchcraft in Lancashire 1612.
For more information:
Author’s website: https://www.carolannlee.co.uk/
Publishers’ website: https://www.bonnierbooks.co.uk/books/john-blake-publishing/something-wicked/