Marion Gibson writes about witches and magic in history. She’s been interested in witches for over thirty years, since she read the words of women accused of witchcraft in Elizabethan England. Why were they accused of crimes they didn’t commit? And why did they confess?

Marion’s books tell the stories of these women and the men accused alongside them, and she explores the wider history of witch trials, folklore, magical and pagan beliefs and things that go bump in the night. She’s a Professor and teaches at Exeter University in south west England where her students read everything from medieval witch-hunting manuals to Gothic novels, and trial records to Harry Potter.

Marion’s book Witchcraft tells the stories of thirteen important witch trials around the world from the fifteenth century to the present day. She’s seldom happier than when she’s peering at worm-eaten parchments, wandering around old towns with her partner and dog, and imagining herself and her readers back into the past. She also has a three-legged cat, but it’s definitely not a familiar.