Encyclopedia of Witchcraft: The Western Tradition

There is a rampant fascination with the supernatural in the modern world. Horace Walpole, Mary Shelley, Dickens, Bram Stoker all pre‐empted a glut of Hammer horror films in the 1970s, supernatural slasher flicks in the 1980s and in the 1990s the beginnings of serials such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the X‐Files, and Charmed. Modern authors such as Stephen King, Susan Cooper and Ursula Le Guin have an enthusiastic and critical following and, like it or not, it is hard to miss the worldwide explosions of Potter‐mania which greet the release of each book and film. The...