1890 Rare Illustrated Edition - The Lancashire Witches, Romance Of Pendle Forest
An exceptionally handsome copy of Ainsworth’s great Gothic romance of witchcraft and Pendle Forest, beautifully bound in red morocco and complete with the dramatic illustrations of Sir John Gilbert.
Author: William Harrison Ainsworth.
Title: The Lancashire Witches: A Romance of Pendle Forest.
Publisher: London: George Routledge and Sons, Limited, Broadway, Ludgate Hill, no date [c. 1890]. Author’s Copyright Edition.
Language: Text in English.
Size: 9" x 6".
Pages: viii, 492 pages.
Binding: Near-fine and exceptionally attractive later-half red morocco binding over richly marbled boards. Spine with raised bands, gilt lettering and elaborate gilt ornamental compartments, with gilt rules bordering the leather and marbled panels. Matching marbled endpapers. Upper edge gilt. Only very light signs of age and use, as shown. A particularly handsome example. Protected in a removable mylar cover.
Content: Very good content. Pages are clean and firmly bound, with expected age toning and occasional light foxing or spotting, principally to some margins and illustrated leaves, as shown.
Illustrations: Complete with 12 full-page black-and-white illustrations by Sir John Gilbert, R.A., including the frontispiece. The dramatic plates depict many of the novel’s scenes of witchcraft, incantation and supernatural menace.
Estimate: USD $300–500.
The book: The Lancashire Witches is William Harrison Ainsworth’s celebrated historical Gothic romance inspired by the notorious Pendle witch trials of seventeenth-century Lancashire. Drawing upon historical accounts, local traditions and the dark folklore surrounding Pendle Hill, Ainsworth transformed the story into a sprawling tale of witchcraft, curses, religious conflict, family rivalries and supernatural terror.
The novel opens amid the bleak landscape surrounding Pendle Hill, a setting that becomes almost a character in its own right. Forests, moors, ruined buildings and isolated villages provide the background for a narrative populated by witches, priests, landowners, mysterious strangers and characters caught between superstition and faith.
The author: William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–1882) was one of the most popular English historical novelists of the Victorian period. He specialized in dramatic narratives drawn from British history, legend and criminal folklore, often combining meticulous antiquarian detail with adventure, romance and Gothic atmosphere.
The Lancashire Witches remains one of Ainsworth’s most enduring novels and one of the major nineteenth-century fictional treatments of English witchcraft.
The illustrator: Sir John Gilbert (1817–1897) was one of the most prolific and distinguished British illustrators of the nineteenth century. Celebrated for his dramatic historical scenes, he contributed illustrations to an enormous range of books and periodicals and became particularly associated with literary and historical subjects.
His illustrations for The Lancashire Witches capture the novel’s mixture of historical romance and Gothic spectacle, from ominous landscapes and sinister characters to some of its most memorable scenes of sorcery and supernatural drama.