The History of Witchcraft in America

Salem, Puritan Demonology, and the Changing American Search for MeaningBy Howard Williams, Frederick George Lee, M. Schele de Vere, Cotton Mather, Increase Mather, Charles Wentworth Upham, M. V. B. Perley, James Thacher, William P. Upham, Samuel Roberts Wells, John M. Taylor, Allen Putnam

Listen with Sir Michael Caine™ and 1,000+ voices

Try for $0.00 Get for $1.99

Length89h 9m

About this audiobook

The History of Witchcraft in America assembles a capacious record of accusation, belief, law, and historical memory from colonial New England through later nineteenth-century reinterpretations. Its materials move among sermon-like polemic, legal and antiquarian history, moral reflection, ethnographic speculation, and popular narrative, revealing witchcraft as both a lived social crisis and a contested cultural symbol. Accounts of the Salem prosecutions stand prominently within a wider inquiry into supernatural belief, evidentiary standards, communal fear, and the changing authority of religious institutions. The contributors bring together foundational colonial voices and later historians, ministers, reform-minded writers, and students of folklore. Cotton and Increase Mather illuminate the theological and providential frameworks that shaped seventeenth-century interpretations, while subsequent commentators revisit those frameworks with the archival habits, skepticism, and historical consciousness of later generations. Across these differing idioms, the collection traces an important transition: from demonological certainty and communal discipline toward critical historiography and debates over credulity, justice, psychology, and social prejudice. This volume is especially valuable for readers seeking to encounter American witchcraft not as a single episode but as an evolving field of testimony and interpretation. Its multiplicity of perspectives invites close comparison of sources, assumptions, and narrative methods. Students of American history, religion, law, folklore, and gendered social anxieties will find a rich educational resource and a compelling dialogue between the past's fears and later efforts to understand them.

Witch Fiction Magic Supernatural Folklore Mythological World Crime Political Intrigue Psychological Gods & Mortals

Audiobook details

GenreHistory, Literary Classics

Length89 hrs 9 mins

Narrated byListen with 1,000+ voices

FormateBook with Audio

Publish dateJun 4, 2019

LanguageEnglish

1Of Plymouth Plantation - True Story of the Pilgrims' Life in the New World Colony (Annotated)

2Introduction

3The Superstitions of Witchcraft by Howard Williams

4Preface

5PART I. EARLIER FAITH: Chapter I.

Mostrar todos os capítulos

6PART II. MEDIÆVAL FAITH

7Chapter I.

8Chapter II.

9Chapter III.

10PART III. MODERN FAITH

11Chapter I.

12Chapter II.

13Chapter III.

14Chapter IV.

15Chapter V.

16Chapter VI.

17Chapter VII.

18Chapter VIII.

19Chapter IX.

20Chapter X.

21Witchcraft in America

22Introduction

23The Author's Defence

24Enchantments Encountered

25An Abstract of Mr. Perkins's Way for the Discovery of Witches

26A Discourse on the Wonders of the Invisible World

27An Hortatory and Necessary Address, to a Country Now Extraordinarily Alarum'd by the Wrath of the Devil

28A Narrative of an Apparition which a Gentleman in Boston, had of His Brother, Just Then Murthered in London

29A Modern Instance of Witches, Discovered and Condemned in a Tryal, Before that Celebrated Judge, Sir Matthew Hale

30I. The Tryal of G. B. at a Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held in Salem, 1692

31II. The Tryal of Bridget Bishop, Alias Oliver, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held at Salem, June 2. 1692

32III. The Tryal of Susanna Martin, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, June 29. 1692

33IV. The Tryal of Elizabeth How, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, June 30. 1692

34V. The Trial of Martha Carrier, at the Court of Oyer and Terminer, Held by Adjournment at Salem, August 2. 1692

35Matter Omitted in the Trials

36The Devil Discovered

37A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches.

38A True Narrative of some Remarkable Passages relating to sundry Persons afflicted by Witchcraft at Salem Village in New-England, which happened from the 19th. of March to the 5th. of April, 1692.

39Remarks of things more than ordinary about the Afflicted Persons

40Remarks concerning the Accused

41A Further Account of the Tryals of the New-England Witches, Sent in a Letter from Thence, to a Gentleman in London

42Cases of Conscience Concerning Evil Spirits Personating Men; Witchcrafts, Infallible Proofs of Guilt in such as are Accused with that Crime: Christian Reader

43Cases of Conscience Concerning Witchcrafts

44Postscript

45Salem Witchcraft by Charles Wentworth Upham

46Preface

47Map and Illustrations

48Index to the Map

49Town of Salem

50Grants