The Story of the Salem Witch Trials

Bryan Le Beau

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9781000861303
• Edition: 3
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Early American History
• Index: History

Providing an accessible and comprehensive overview, The Story of the Salem Witch Trials explores the events between June 10 and September 22, 1692, when nineteen people were hanged, one was pressed to death and over 150 were jailed for practicing witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts.

This book explores the history of that event and provides a synthesis of the most recent scholarship on the subject. It places the trials into the context of the Great European Witch-Hunt and relates the events of 1692 to witch-hunting throughout seventeenth-century New England. Now in a third edition, this book has been updated to include an expanded section on the European origins of witch-hunts, an updated and expanded epilogue (which discusses the witch-hunts, real and imagined, historical and cultural, since 1692), and an extensive bibliography.

This complex and difficult subject is covered in a uniquely accessible manner that captures all the drama that surrounded the Salem witch trials. From beginning to end, the reader is carried along by the author's powerful narration and mastery of the subject. While covering the subject in impressive detail, Bryan Le Beau maintains a broad perspective on the events and, wherever possible, lets the historical characters speak for themselves. Le Beau highlights the decisions made by individuals responsible for the trials that helped turn what might have been a minor event into a crisis that has held the imagination of students of American history. This third edition of The Story of the Salem Witch Trials is essential for students and scholars alike who are interested in women's and gender history, colonial American history, and early modern history.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Endorsements
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction to the Third Edition
• 1. “A Biography of a Terrible but Perfectly Normal Superstition”
• 2. “Having Familiarity with the Devil”
• 3. “The Evil Hand” Is upon Them
• 4. “Is Not This a Brand Plucked from the Burning?”
• 5. “If They Are Let Alone We Should All Be Devils and Witches”
• 6. “God Will Deliver Us Out of the Hands of Unmerciful Men”
• 7. “God Will Give You Blood to Drink”
• 8. “What a Sad Thing It Is to See Eight Firebrands of Hell Hanging There”
• 9. “It Were Better That Ten Suspected Witches Should Escape, Than That One Innocent Person Should Be Condemned”
• 10. “Ruined in the Mistaken Management of the Terrible Affair Called Witchcraft”
• Epilogue
• Appendix
• Bibliography
• Index