|
Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft
''Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq.'' (1830) was a study of witchcraft and the supernatural by Sir Walter Scott. A lifelong student of folklore, Scott was able to draw on a wide-ranging collection of primary and secondary sources. His book found many readers throughout the 19th century, and exercised a significant influence in promoting the Victorian vogue for Gothic and ghostly fiction. Though on first publication it met with mixed reviews, it is now recognised as a pioneering work of scientific anthropology, treating of its subject in an acute and analytical way which prefigures later scholarship on the subject, as well as presenting a highly readable collection of supernatural anecdotes. Content The book is divided into ten parts, each taking the form of a letter from the author to his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart. This format allows Scott to write in an informal, discursive manner, enhancing the book's readability. He presents a wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Letters On Demonology And Witchcraft
''Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft Addressed to J. G. Lockhart, Esq.'' (1830) was a study of witchcraft and the supernatural by Sir Walter Scott. A lifelong student of folklore, Scott was able to draw on a wide-ranging collection of primary and secondary sources. His book found many readers throughout the 19th century, and exercised a significant influence in promoting the Victorian vogue for Gothic and ghostly fiction. Though on first publication it met with mixed reviews, it is now recognised as a pioneering work of scientific anthropology, treating of its subject in an acute and analytical way which prefigures later scholarship on the subject, as well as presenting a highly readable collection of supernatural anecdotes. Content The book is divided into ten parts, each taking the form of a letter from the author to his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart. This format allows Scott to write in an informal, discursive manner, enhancing the book's readability. He presents a wi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Journal Of Sir Walter Scott
''The Journal of Sir Walter Scott'' is a diary which the novelist and poet Walter Scott kept between 1825 and 1832. It records the financial disaster which overtook him at the beginning of 1826, and the efforts he made over the next seven years to pay off his debts by writing bestselling books. Since its first complete publication in 1890 it has attracted high praise, being considered by many critics one of the finest diaries in the language. Manuscript The manuscript of the ''Journal'', "a handsome lockd volume" as Scott called it, is of quarto size and bound in vellum. The handwriting displayed in it, especially after his final series of strokes, is so atrociously difficult that, according to the ''Journals most recent editor, a perfectly accurate transcription is quite impossible. The title-page bears this inscription: The manuscript was kept at Abbotsford after Scott's death, but was bought by the financier J. P. Morgan around 1900, and is now in the Morgan Library in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
David Brewster
Sir David Brewster KH PRSE FRS FSA Scot FSSA MICE (11 December 178110 February 1868) was a British scientist, inventor, author, and academic administrator. In science he is principally remembered for his experimental work in physical optics, mostly concerned with the study of the polarization of light and including the discovery of Brewster's angle. He studied the birefringence of crystals under compression and discovered photoelasticity, thereby creating the field of optical mineralogy.A. D. Morrison-Low (2004) "Brewster, Sir David (1781–1868)" in ''Oxford Dictionary of National Biography'' For this work, William Whewell dubbed him the "father of modern experimental optics" and "the Johannes Kepler of optics." A pioneer in photography, Brewster invented an improved stereoscope, which he called "lenticular stereoscope" and which became the first portable 3D-viewing device. He also invented the stereoscopic camera, two types of polarimeters, the polyzonal lens, the li ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orkney
Orkney (; sco, Orkney; on, Orkneyjar; nrn, Orknøjar), also known as the Orkney Islands, is an archipelago in the Northern Isles of Scotland, situated off the north coast of the island of Great Britain. Orkney is 10 miles (16 km) north of the coast of Caithness and has about 70 islands, of which 20 are inhabited. The largest island, the Mainland, Orkney, Mainland, has an area of , making it the List of islands of Scotland, sixth-largest Scottish island and the List of islands of the British Isles, tenth-largest island in the British Isles. Orkney’s largest settlement, and also its administrative centre, is Kirkwall. Orkney is one of the 32 Subdivisions of Scotland, council areas of Scotland, as well as a Orkney (Scottish Parliament constituency), constituency of the Scottish Parliament, a Lieutenancy areas of Scotland, lieutenancy area, and an counties of Scotland, historic county. The local council is Orkney Islands Council, one of only three councils in Scotland with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Thomas Jackson (theologian)
Thomas Jackson (1579 – 1640) was an English theologian, and President of Corpus Christi College, Oxford. Originally a Calvinist, he became in later life an Arminian. Life He was born at Witton-le-Wear, County Durham, and educated at the University of Oxford, where he attended Queen’s College from 1595. He became a probationer fellow of Corpus Christi College in 1606, and was soon afterwards elected vice-president there. In 1623 James Thomas Jackson was presented to the living of St Nicholas, Newcastle, and about 1625 to the living of Winston, County Durham. In 1631 he was appointed President of Corpus; and in 1632 Charles I presented him to the living of Witney, Oxfordshire. He was made a prebendary of Winchester in 1635, and was Dean of Peterborough from 1635 to 1639. Works His chief work was a series of commentaries on the Apostles' Creed, the first complete edition being entitled ''The Works of Thomas Jackson, D.D.'' (London, 1673), edited by Barnabas Oley. The commen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
John Ferriar
John Ferriar (1761 – 4 February 1815), was a Scottish physician and a poet, most noted for his leadership of the Manchester Infirmary, and his studies of the causes of diseases such as typhoid. Background Ferriar was born near Jedburgh, Roxburghshire in 1761. He obtained his MD at the University of Edinburgh in 1781, and became a physician (and later senior physician) at the Manchester Infirmary, from 1789 until 1815. He was a founder of the Portico Library and acted as its first Chairman alongside its first Secretary, Peter Mark Roget. Manchester Board of Health In 1795, he helped to set up a Board of Health in Manchester which rented houses in Portland Street for use as a fever hospital. He described to the Committee for the Regulation of the Police the appalling living conditions of the poor in cellars without lighting, sanitation or ventilation. People newly arrived from the country were particularly vulnerable to fevers. Consequently, he introduced many sanitary r ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cotton Mather
Cotton Mather (; February 12, 1663 – February 13, 1728) was a New England Puritan clergyman and a prolific writer. Educated at Harvard College, in 1685 he joined his father Increase as minister of the Congregationalist Old North Meeting House of Boston, where he continued to preach for the rest of his life. A major intellectual and public figure in English-speaking colonial America, Cotton Mather helped lead the successful revolt of 1689 against Sir Edmund Andros, the governor imposed on New England by King James II. Mather's subsequent involvement in the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693, which he defended in the book ''Wonders of the Invisible World'' (1693), attracted intense controversy in his own day and has negatively affected his historical reputation. As a historian of colonial New England, Mather is noted for his '' Magnalia Christi Americana'' (1702). Personally and intellectually committed to the waning social and religious orders in New England, Cotton Math ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Kirk (folklorist)
Robert Kirk (9 December 1644 – 14 May 1692) was a minister, Gaelic scholar and folklorist, best known for ''The Secret Commonwealth'', a treatise on fairy folklore, witchcraft, ghosts, and second sight, a type of extrasensory perception described as a phenomenon by the people of the Scottish Highlands. Folklorist Stewart Sanderson and mythologist Marina Warner called Kirk's collection of supernatural tales one of the most important and significant works on the subject of fairies and second sight.Sanderson 1964, p. 1; Warner 2007, p. viii. In the late 1680s, Kirk travelled to London to help publish one of the first translations of the Bible into Scottish Gaelic. Gentleman scientist Robert Boyle financed the publication of the Gaelic Bible and pursued inquiries into Kirk's reports of second sight. Kirk died before he was able to publish ''The Secret Commonwealth''. Legends arose after Kirk's death saying he had been taken away to fairyland for revealing the secrets of the Go ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Reginald Scot
Reginald Scot (or Scott) ( – 9 October 1599) was an Englishman and Member of Parliament, the author of ''The Discoverie of Witchcraft'', which was published in 1584. It was written against the belief in witches, to show that witchcraft did not exist. Part of its content exposes how (apparently miraculous) feats of magic were done, and the book is often deemed the first textbook on conjuring. Life He was son of Richard Scot, second son of Sir John Scott (died 1533) of Scots Hall in Smeeth, near Ashford in Kent. His mother was Mary, daughter of George Whetenall, sheriff of Kent in 1527. His father died before 1544, and his mother remarried Fulk Onslow, clerk of the parliament; dying on 8 October 1582, she was buried in the church of Hatfield, Hertfordshire. Reginald or Reynold (as he signed his name in accordance with contemporary practice) was born about 1538. When about seventeen, Scot entered Hart Hall, Oxford, but left the university without a degree. His writings show ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Robert Pitcairn (antiquary)
Robert Pitcairn (14 August 1793 – 11 July 1855) was a Scottish antiquary and scholar who contributed to works published by Walter Scott and the Bannatyne Club. He was the author of ''Criminal Trials and other Proceedings before the High Court of Justiciary in Scotland (1829-1833)''. He was head of the Edinburgh Printing and Publishing Company and secretary of the Calvin Translating Society Pitcairn was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and a Writer to His Majesty’s Signet, and a member of the Maitland Club. Life He was born in Edinburgh in 1793, second son of Jean Kincaid and Robert Pitcairn (1749-1828), Principal Keeper at Register House. He was first cousin to William Fettes Pitcairn. He trained as a lawyer and was admitted to the Society of Writers to HM Signet on 21 November 1815. He was a friend and collaborator of Sir Walter Scott, often obtaining historical information for his use. He lived more or less opposite Scott, at 50 Castle Street in Ed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Samuel Hibbert-Ware
Samuel Hibbert-Ware (21 April 1782 – 30 December 1848), born Samuel Hibbert in St Ann's Square Manchester, was an English geologist and antiquarian. Life He was the eldest son of Samuel Hibbert (d.1815), a linen yarn merchant, and his wife Sarah Ware, from Dublin. Hibbert was granted an MD and became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. He served as the secretary of the Society of Scottish Antiquarians, a member of the Royal Medical and Wernerian Societies of Edinburgh, as well as a member of the Philosophical Society of Manchester. His book ''Sketches of the Philosophy of Apparitions'' (1825) is an early skeptical work that gave possible physical and physiological explanations for sightings of ghosts. He died at Hale Barns, Altrincham in Cheshire on 30 December 1848. He is buried in Ardwick cemetery in Manchester. Publications *'' A Description of the Shetland Islands: Comprising an Account of their Scenery, Antiquities and Superstitions'' (1822) Reprinted 18 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abbotsford, Scottish Borders
Abbotsford is a historic country house in the Scottish Borders, near Galashiels, on the south bank of the River Tweed. Now open to the public, it was built as the residence of historical novelist and poet Sir Walter Scott between 1817 and 1825. It is a Category A Listed Building and the estate is listed in the Inventory of Gardens and Designed Landscapes in Scotland. Description The nucleus of the estate was a small farm of , called Cartleyhole, nicknamed Clarty (i.e., muddy) Hole, and was bought by Scott on the lapse of his lease (1811) of the neighbouring house of Ashestiel. Scott renamed it "Abbotsford" after a neighbouring ford used by the monks of Melrose Abbey. Following a modest enlargement of the original farmhouse in 1811–12, massive expansions took place in 1816–19 and 1822–24. In this mansion Scott gathered a large library, a collection of ancient furniture, arms and armour, and other relics and curiosities especially connected with Scottish history, notably ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
