Audiobooks by Malcolm Gaskill

Hellish Nell: Last of Britain's Witches Audiobook

Brought to you by Penguin. One of the last criminal trials using the 1735 Witchcraft Act was, improbably, in London in 1944. The accused was Helen Duncan, a middle-aged Scotswoman. This is her extraordinary story. Helen Duncan - known since childhood as 'Hellish Nell', for her uncontainable nature - was one of the most popular mediums of the twentieth century, holding seances around the country where she was believed to manifest the spirits of the dead. What happens when we die? It was the question of the age for a generation which had endured one world war and now was living through another. Mrs Duncan's seances offered an answer. But when she started foretelling naval disasters, she also attracted the unwelcome attention of the secret service. And so just weeks before the Normandy landings, absurdly, anachronistically, she was prosecuted for witchcraft and jailed. Was Nell a conjurer, a martyr or a security risk? Hellish Nell was first published in 2001 to widespread acclaim. It remains in this revised edition a fascinating window into the unsettled spiritual and psychological mood of the times: a sensational tale of spectacle, credulity and cruelty, and of Britain's last witch. ©2023 Malcolm Gaskill (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Malcolm Gaskill (Author), Catherine Bailey (Narrator)

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The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

Brought to you by Penguin. *A TIMES, SUNDAY TIMES AND BBC HISTORY HISTORY BOOK OF THE YEAR 2021* In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the irascible brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich, previously neglected source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death. Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between supernatural obsessions and the age of enlightenment. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world. 'The best and most enjoyable kind of history writing' Hilary Mantel 'A bona fide historical classic' Sunday Times Simply one of the best history books I have ever read' BBC History 'A great story, exquisitely told. This book is history at its illuminative best' The Times 'As compelling as a campfire story ... Gaskill brings this sinister past vividly to life' Erica Wagner, Financial Times © Malcolm Gaskill 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Malcolm Gaskill (Author), Kristin Atherton (Narrator)

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The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

Brought to you by Penguin. In the frontier town of Springfield in 1651, peculiar things begin to happen. Precious food spoils, livestock ails and property vanishes. People suffer fits, and are plagued by strange visions and dreams. Children sicken and die. As tensions rise, rumours spread of witches and heretics, and the community becomes tangled in a web of spite, distrust and denunciation. The finger of suspicion falls on a young couple struggling to make a home and feed their children: Hugh Parsons the prickly brickmaker and his troubled wife, Mary. It will be their downfall. The Ruin of All Witches tells the dark, real-life folktale of witch-hunting in a remote Massachusetts plantation. These were the turbulent beginnings of colonial America, when English settlers' dreams of love and liberty, of founding a 'city on a hill', gave way to paranoia and terror, enmity and rage. Drawing on uniquely rich, previously neglected source material, Malcolm Gaskill brings to life a New World existence steeped in the divine and the diabolic, in curses and enchantments, and precariously balanced between life and death. Through the gripping micro-history of a family tragedy, we glimpse an entire society caught in agonized transition between superstition and enlightenment, tradition and innovation. We see, in short, the birth of the modern world. © Malcolm Gaskill 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Malcolm Gaskill (Author), Ethan Kelly (Narrator)

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Between Two Worlds: How the English Became Americans

Over 350,000 intrepid English men, women, and children migrated to America in the seventeenth century, leaving behind their homeland for an uncertain future on distant shores. Whether they settled in Jamestown, Salem, or Barbados, these early English migrants—entrepreneurs, soldiers, and pilgrims alike—sought to re-create their old country in the new land. Yet as Malcolm Gaskill reveals in Between Two Worlds, colonists’ efforts to remake England and retain their Englishness proved impossible. As they strove to leave their mark on the New World, they too were altered: by harsh wilderness, by illness and infighting, and by bloody battles with Indians. Gradually acclimating to their new environment, later generations realized that they were perhaps not even English at all. These were the first Americans, and their newfound independence would propel them along the path toward rebellion. A major work of transatlantic history, Between Two Worlds brilliantly illuminates the long, complicated, and often traumatic process by which English colonists became American. “Gaskill, a professor of early modern history at the University of East Anglia, offers an in-depth look at the experiences of the first three generations of English settlers on the American continent that examines their slow transformation into a new culture…Meticulously researched and drawing on a plenitude of original source material, Gaskill’s study provides an underrepresented view of early American history.”—Publishers Weekly

Malcolm Gaskill (Author), Gildart Jackson (Narrator)

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