Includes:
•Charles River Editors’ original history of The Salem Witch Trials
•Salem Witchcraft and Salem Witchcraft and Cotton Mather by Charles Wentworth Upham
• Memorable Providences, Witchcrafts, Possessions and The Wonders of the Invisible World by Cotton Mather
"More than once it has been said, too, that the Salem witchcraft was the rock on which the theocracy shattered." – George Lincoln Burr
The sleepy town of Salem, Massachusetts was like every other small village that dotted the countryside until 1692, when religious authorities held a series of hearings accusing dozens of people of witchcraft across a handful of towns outside of Boston, including Ipswich and Andover. However, since the most notorious trials were held in Salem, they have been known ever since as the Salem Witch Trials.
Today the Salem Witch Trials are often remembered as being a relic of a superstitious past, and Salem has transformed itself into a tourist haven and Halloween destination by capitalizing off the Salem Witch trials. But it was deadly serious in 1692, when 19 men and women found themselves taken to “Gallows Hill” and hanged for being witches. Another man who was over 80 years old was pressed to death for refusing to be tried for witchcraft. And from February 1692-May 1693, hundreds of others were accused of witchcraft, and dozens of them were imprisoned for months until the mass hysteria finally died down.
The Salem Witch Trials are still taught to American schoolchildren, but much of the context is removed from the narrative, and important questions are often never posed. How did the Salem Witch Trials go on for over a year? Why did it happen in Salem? Why were the condemned people accused of witchcraft? The Ultimate Salem Witch Trials Collection chronicles the history that led up to the infamous trials, and the legends and myths surrounding them, with an original short history of the trials, Charles Upham’s histories of the trials, and some of Cotton Mather’s writings. This collection also includes pictures and a Table of Contents.
