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 wide survey of attitudes to demonology and witchcraft from Biblical times up to the 19th century, illustrating it with a large number of anecdotes of individual cases. He considers also the topics of ghosts, fairies, brownies, elves, second sight, and the mythologies of the various Germanic peoples. Belief in these phenomena is presented as the result of ignorance and prejudice, which was eventually dispersed by the rise of rationalist philosophy in the 18th century. Witchcraft prosecutions were, he points out, often directed against heretics and political undesirables. Throughout he treats his subjects in the analytical, rationalist manner to be expected of an heir of the Scottish Enlightenment.
Composition
Scott's fascination with the supernatural stretched back to his childhood. In 1809 he had suggested to his friend Robert Surtees that they work together on a "system of Daemonology", and in 1812 he proposed to collaborate with Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe on a collection of comic stories on the same subject. In 1823 he began a "dialogue on Popular Superstitions"; his publisher made an offer for him to expand it to book-length, but Scott thought the sum too little and abandoned the idea.
In 1830 Scott's position was entirely different. To pay off enormous debts he had for several years been writing volume after volume of fiction and non-fiction, to the detriment of his health. In February he suffered a stroke, inducing his son-in-law, J. G. Lockhart, to suggest he write a book on demonology rather than a more demanding three-volume novel. This promised to be, in John Sutherland's words, "the kind of roundabout essay on antiquarian themes which came as easily as talking to Scott". It was to be a contribution to the publisher John Murray's "Family Library", and the payment of £600 would be a sorely needed subvention for his personal expenses. He began on 21 March, but after three months work he was flagging. "I must do something better than these Daemonological trash", he wrote in his Journal. "It is nine o'clock, and I am weary, yea, my very spirit's tired." On 16 July he was able to record "I have finished the Daemonology and have a mind to say D—n it, but the subject is damnd to my hand", and by 22 July he had finished correcting the proofs.
Publication
Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft was published on 14 September 1830, in time to take full advantage of the Christmas trade. From November 1830 copies were sold extra-illustrated with twelve engravings by George Cruikshank. Sales of the first edition were brisk enough to necessitate a second edition, published on 24 January 1831. In the following years translations appeared in Italian and Spanish, while two competing French translations were published in the 1830s. New editions of the Letters appeared at short intervals throughout the 19th century.