Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt

Bernard Rosenthal has written widely on American literature and culture. His monographs include City of Nature and Salem Story, and he has edited published volumes, including an updated edition of The Oregon Trail by Francis Parkman, Jr. He is also the author of numerous articles and reviews. Rosenthal has received two grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, one shared with Benjamin Ray, and a grant from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission in support of this book. Rosenthal was also a Fulbright lecturer in 1996–-7 at Tampere University in Finland. Rosenthal edited this volume in collaboration with an international group of ten Associate Editors.

• 1. List of facsimile plates; 2. General introduction Bernard Rosenthal; 3. Legal procedures used during the Salem witch trials and a brief history of the published version of the records Richard Trask; 4. Linguistic introduction Peter Grund, Risto Hiltunen, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka, Merja Kytö, Matti Peikola and Matti Rissanen; 5. Editorial principles; 6. Chronological arrangement Bernard Rosenthal and Margo Burns; 7. List of the records of the Salem witch hunt; 8. The records; 9. Timeline: court of Oyer & Terminer and Superior Court of Judicature; 10. Biographical notes Marilynne K. Roach; 11. Works cited; 12. Acknowledgements; 13. Index.

'Few events of American history continue to grip our imagination as does the Salem witchcraft outbreak of 1692. This monumental new work of collaborative historical scholarship presents nearly a thousand legal documents relating to that outbreak, freshly edited with scrupulous care and introduced with a series of helpful essays. In this definitive assemblage of the episode's legal records, human anguish, terror, confusion, and grim certitude constantly break through the legalese. Records of the Salem Witch-Hunt will be welcomed not only by legal scholars, linguists, American Colonial historians, and students of witchcraft, but by all who continue to be drawn to the dark events that unfolded in a New England village more than three centuries ago.' Paul Boyer, co-author with Stephen Nissenbaum of Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft