William Harrison Ainsworth: The Forgotten Manchester Myth Maker

Alice McMahon Measom & Michelle Ravenscroft introduce you to Victorian novelist & Portico Library member who myth made the Pendle Witches. Manchester-born William Harrison Ainsworth (1805–1882) was one of Victorian Britain’s most popular historical novelists. Initially trained for the law, Ainsworth was drawn instead to literature and history. His dramatic romances combined historical characters, spectacular events and evocative descriptions of place, turning them into a world of legend, superstition and adventure. He achieved national fame with Rookwood (1834) and Jack Sheppard (1839), illustrated by George Cruikshank, while The Lancashire Witches (1848) drew on the history, folklore and landscapes of his native region. In The Good Old Times: The Manchester Rebels of ’45 (1873) he brought together royalty, revolution, romance and political intrigue. Ainsworth was also a significant figure in Victorian magazine culture. He succeeded Charles Dickens as editor of Bentley’s Miscellany, where Jack Sheppard was serialised, launched Ainsworth’s Magazine in 1842, and later purchased and edited the New Monthly Magazine. In 1854 he boughtBentley’s Miscellany, remaining its proprietor and editor until 1868. He was also a member of the Portico Library. This talk explores Ainsworth as novelist, editor and creator of literary myth, examining how Lancashire shaped his imagination, how this shaped the way generations of readers imagined the past; and why this author, who outsold his friend Charles Dickens, is all but forgotten.