Academic Scientific JournalsRe‐imagining witchcraft: Gender, voice, and violence in Philip Paris’s The Last Witch of Scotland
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.26881/bp.2025.4.09Keywords:
Janet Horne, witchcraft, feminism, feminist historiography, voice and silenceAbstract
The aim of this article is to examine Philip Paris’s The Last Witch of Scotland (2023), a historical novel that reimagines the life and death of Janet Horne, the last person executed for witchcraft in Britain. Drawing on feminist theorists such as Silvia Federici, Mona Chollet, and Julia Kristeva, the article situates the novel within a broader discourse on gender, voice, and social exclusion in early eighteenth-century Scotland. It argues that through Aila Horne’s first-person narration and the compassionate portrayal of her mother Janet, Paris transforms archival absence into narrative presence and gives voice to those who were silenced before.
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References
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