James Anthony Sharpe, FRHS (9 October 1946 – 13 February 2024) was an English social historian who was a professor emeritus of early modern history at the University of York. He was a specialist in witchcraft, and crime and punishment, in early modern England.Sad News of the Death of Jim Sharpe. Department of History, University of York. Retrieved 26 February 2024.
Sharpe earned his BA and DPhil at the University of Oxford and joined the University of York as a lecturer in 1973.The Decline of Public Punishment in England 1750-1868 James Sharpe. York Festival of Ideas, 2016. Retrieved 8 July 2017. He became professor in 1997 and retired in 2016.James Sharpe. Penguin Books. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
Sharpe died on 13 February 2024, at the age of 77.
Selected publications Crime in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge University Press/Past and Present Publications, 1983. "William Holcroft his Booke": Office Holding in Late Stuart Essex. Essex Record Office, Essex Historical Documents, 2, 1986. Crime and the Law in English Satirical Prints 1600 - 1832. Chadwyck - Healey, 1986. Judicial Punishment in England. Faber and Faber, 1990. Early Modern England: a Social History 1550 - 1760. Edward Arnold, 1987: 2nd edn., 1997. Instruments of Darkness: Witchcraft in England 1550 - 1750. Hamish Hamilton, 1996.Instruments of Darkness Witchcraft in Early Modern England James Sharpe. University of Pennsylvania Press. Retrieved 8 July 2017. Crime in Early Modern England 1550 - 1750. Longman, 1984: 2nd edn., 1998. The Bewitching of Anne Gunter: A horrible and true story of deception, witchcraft, murder and the King of England. Profile Books, 2000. Witchcraft in Early Modern England. Longmans, 2001: 2nd edn., 2019. Seminar Studies in History series. Dick Turpin: The Myth of the English Highwayman. Profile Books, 2004. A Fiery & Furious People. Random House, 2016.A Fiery & Furious People: A History of Violence in England James Sharpe. Penguin Books. Retrieved 8 July 2017.
References
Further reading Obituary