Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550Ð1750 - Softcover

"The purpose of this finely edited and extremely useful volume is to show how a wide range of people in England and New England understood witchcraft during and after the period of the witch trials. . . . The most distinctive feature of Gibson's anthology is the large number of literary sources."-Brian P. Levack, University of Texas at Austin, H-Albion, H-Net Reviews, August 2004

A unique collection of materials, including works of literature as well as historical documents, Witchcraft and Society in England and America, 1550-1750 provides a broad view of how witches and magicians were represented in print and manuscript over three centuries. It combines newly annotated selections from famous texts, such as Macbeth, Doctor Faustus, and The Faerie Queene with unjustly obscure ones: portrayals of witchcraft and magic from private papers, court records, and little-known works of fiction. In this rich, broad context, Marion Gibson presents the voices of "witches," accusers, ministers, physicians, poets, dramatists, magistrates, and witchfinders from both sides of the Atlantic. Each text is introduced with a short essay and fully annotated to explain unfamiliar words and concepts, give biographical details of participants and/or authors, and explore the context in which the text was produced.