We had Deb in to the studio recently to talk about all of this for a podcast we call Excellent Witchcraft.
And it’s her understanding of real people-like John Dee, Elizabeth I’s astrologer – that makes her novels so rich. She’s a PhD, teaching professor of history at the University of Southern California, who, in addition to her Trilogy, has also written two books on science and magic in the early modern period. See, Deborah Harkness is not your standard historical fantasy novelist. The All Souls Trilogy was written by an old friend of the Folger: Deborah Harkness, who’s been doing research here since her days as a graduate student. The All Souls Trilogy follows Diana Bishop, an historian at Yale who has been hiding the fact that she is actually a witch.
#A DISCOVERY OF WITCHES BOOK SERIES#
Actually, what I said a second ago is the plot point that kicks off a runaway series of best-selling novels that are now getting their world premiere as a TV series. I’m Michael Witmore, the Folger’s director. Stick with me.įrom the Folger Shakespeare Library, this is Shakespeare Unlimited. MICHAEL WITMORE: Okay, so a witch and an historian walk into a library. Previous: Acting, Emotion, and Science on Shakespeare's Stage | Next: Harriet Walter We had technical help from Shawn Corey Campbell and Bianca Ramirez at KPCC Public Radio in Pasadena, California. This podcast episode, “Excellent Witchcraft” was produced by Richard Paul. Listen to Shakespeare Unlimited on iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, Soundcloud, Stitcher or NPR One.įrom the Shakespeare Unlimited podcast series. Page through images from v.b.26, the 16th-century Book of Magic, with Instructions for Invoking Spirits, etc. from the Folger's collection. Harkness is interviewed by Barbara Bogaev. She is the author of John Dee’s Conversations with Angels and The Jewel House: Elizabethan London and the Scientific Revolution, as well as the All Souls Trilogy, originally published by Viking Press for Penguin Books. Deborah Harkness is a teaching professor of history at the University of Southern California. We asked Harkness to join us on Shakespeare Unlimited to talk about how her research influenced her fiction writing and to tell us about how witches, demons, and the supernatural were perceived in Shakespeare’s England.ĭr. The show comes to AMC and BBC America on April 7. The novel is now a television series starring Teresa Palmer and Matthew Goode. Harkness’s idea became A Discovery of Witches, the first book of her All Souls Trilogy. About fourteen years later, she had an idea for a story: a historian-who turns out to be a witch-discovers a lost and much-coveted manuscript that thrusts her into a world of vampires, demons, and magic.
In 1994, Deborah Harkness was doing research at Oxford University’s Bodleian Library when she stumbled across the Book of Soyga, a long-lost manuscript treatise on magic that once belonged to Elizabethan scientist and occult philosopher John Dee.
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