Salem: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century.
Witchcraft, From A Female Perspective
[Witchcraft]. Derby, Caroline Rosina. Salem: A Tale of the Seventeenth Century by D.R. Castleton. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1874.
8vo.; brown endpapers; green cloth, stamped in gilt and blind; covers lightly, occasionally stained, some wear.
First edition of this novel about the persecution of witches in the 1600s, written by a woman under a gender-neutral pseudonym. An uncommon book and surely one of the first attempts to retell the story of the Salem witchcraft trials from a female perspective.
In her preface, the author justifies her right to write this historical novel by insisting that, while not a historian, she did conduct historical research: “In all that is purely historical we claim to be strictly authentic: such portions being either copies from the court records, or carefully compiled from the most reliable historians. Our own feet have trodden the precincts of ‘salem Village,’ of ‘Gallow’s Hill,’ and ‘Poison Lane;’ in our own hands we have held the veritable ‘witch-pins;’ our own eyes have searched the records, and read one of the original death warrants still in preservation—and therefore we claim to know something of that of which we have written” (from the preface).
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