A unique collection of materials, including works of literature as well as historical documents, this book provides a broad view of how witches and magicians were represented in print and manuscript over three centuries.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.
Contents:
- Witchcraft in the Courts
- Witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England
- English Demonologies
- Stage and Page: Witches in Literature
- Possession: The Devil and the Witch
- Learned Men and Magic
- Magic and Money: A Trickster
- Witchcraft in America
- Decline and Change: Restoration to Eighteenth Century
