Download or read book Hellish Nell written by Malcolm Gaskill and published by . This book was released on 2001 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The 1735 Witchcraft Act, charging that spirits of the dead had been raised by conjuration, was used for the last time in Portsmouth in 1944. The accused was Helen Duncan, a plump Scotswoman, convicted as a fraud yet believed by hundreds to possess the power to speak to the dead. This is her extraordinary story, and of religion and superstition in Britain in the first half of the 20th century.