Witchcraft And Society in England and America, 1550-1750

Marion Gibson teaches at the University of Exeter in Cornwall, England. She is the author of Early Modern Witches: Witchcraft Cases in Contemporary Writing and Reading Witchcraft.

• Acknowledgements; Introduction; 1. Witchcraft in the Courts; An Act against Conjurations, Witchcrafts, Sorcery and Enchantments 1541/2; An Act against Conjurations, Enchantments and Witchcrafts 1563; An Act against Conjuration, Witchcraft and dealing with evil and wicked Spirits 1604; The Witchcraft Act 1735; Information and Examination: Suffolk 1645; Printed Information and Examination: Devon 1682; Indictment: Essex 1579; 2. Witchcraft in Elizabethan and Jacobean England; The examination of John Walsh or Welshe, 1566; W.W., A true and just Recorde (London, 1582); A Brief abstract of the Arraignment of nine Witches at Northampton, 1612; 3. English Demonologies; George Gifford, A Dialogue concerning Witches and Witchcraftes (London, 1593); Reginold Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft (London, 1584); John Cotta, The Triall of Witch-craft (London, 1616); 4. Stage and Page: Witches in Literature; Thomas Middleton, The Witch (c. 1613-15); William Shakespeare, Macbeth (c. 1606); John Ford, Thomas Dekker and William Rowley, The Witch of Edmonton (1621). Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (Books 1-3, 1590); Ben Jonson, The Masque of Queenes (1609); Miles Gale (?), 'Witchcraft ye practice of deluded minds'; 5. Possession: The Devil and the Witch; Jesse Bee and others, The most Wonderful and True Storie, of a certain Witch named Alse Gooderige (London, 1597); Edward Fairfax, 'A Discourse of witchcraft' (1621-22); 6. Learned Men and Magic; Christopher Marlowe, The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus (A text, 1604); Anon, The Merry Devil of Edmonton (c. 1604); 7. Magic and Money: A Trickster; Thomas Heywood, The Wise Woman of Hogsdon (c. 1604); Ben Jonson, The Alchemist (1610); 8. Witchcraft in America; Examination of Bridget Bishop; Indictment of Bridget Bishop for afflicting Mercy Lewis; Susannah Sheldon, evidence against Bridget Bishop and others; Cotton Mather, Wonders of the Invisible World (Boston and London, 1693); Increase Mather, Cases of Conscience (Boston, 1693); John Hale, A Modest Enquiry Into the Nature of Witchcraft (Boston, 1702); 9. Decline and Change: Restoration to Eighteenth Century; Joseph Glanvill, Saducismus Triumphatus (London, 1681); Francis Hutchison, An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft (London, 1718); Daniel Defoe, A System of Magick, or a History of the Black Art (London, 1727); Select Bibliography and Further Reading.