Gender and crime

Criminal women is the theme of a book published last year: Murderesses in German Writing, 1720-1860: Heroines of Horror by Susanne Kord from the Department of German at University College London. The book contains a chapter on vampires, including a history of how 'Serbian vampires come to life in Germany (Leipzig and Vienna, 1732-1755)', but probably mostly concentrating on Elizabeth Bathory and 'female vampires in literature from Goethe to the Grimms (1797-1823)'. Published by Cambridge University Press, it is available for around £50.

The cover reproduces Philip Burne-Jones's famous painting The Vampire.

Witchcraft, werewolves and masculinity

'Men and masculinities are still incorporated inadequately into the history of early modern witch-trials, despite the fact that 20-25% of all the people accused of witchcraft across early modern Europe were male. This book redresses this imbalance by making men the main focus of analysis. What sort of men risked being accused of witchcraft in early modern Europe, and why did some regions persecute more men as witches than others? Did the numbers of male victims increase during large-scale witch-panics? What ideas about masculinity underpinned the zeal of the men who acted as witch-hunters? To what extent were beliefs about the practice of magic gendered, and how did gender shape the ways in which werewolves were imagined and demonic possession was experienced? In this groundbreaking collection of essays, leading historians of early modern European witchcraft offer answers to these questions through original case-studies from England, Germany, Scotland, Italy and France.'

This is the description of a new anthology, Witchcraft and Masculinities in Early Modern Europe edited by Alison Rowland and published on November 20.