Mist Over Pendle

First edition. Crown 8vo. 328pp. Brown cloth boards, lettered in gilt to spine; khaki top stain. Dustwrapper artwork, map and endpaper decorations by 'Sax'. Published as The Elegant Witch in the U.S. by Doubleday [N.Y.], in 1952.

Slight spine lean, discoloured spots to top board edges, price-clipped dustwrapper lightly tanned to backstrip and lower panel margins, else Fine. An exceptionally 'fresh' copy, and scarce in a dustwrapper.

Author's first book and best-known work. A fictionalised account of events leading up to the infamous 1612 Pendle witch trials, based upon extensive research into original sources, such as Parish Registers, and contemporary documents. Never out-of-print and a major source of Pendle's thriving tourist industry. Subject previously tackled by William Harrison Ainsworth, a contemporary of Dickens, whose 1849 tome The Lancashire Witches, is the only one of his forty-odd books to be still in print. "A terrific story, told by a master storyteller." –Historical Novel Society