Salem Witchcraft; With An Account of Salem Village, and A History of Opinons on Witchcraft and Kindred Subjects - 2 Volume Set, Complete

2 volumes. xl, (2), 469, (1); (4), 553, (1)pp. 2 woodcut frontispieces, and a folding map of Salem Village in 1692. A bright very good set in the original publisher's green cloth and fold-out map. An excellent set housed in a custom green cloth clamshell box. In the late seventeenth century, nineteen residents of Salem, Massachusetts—charged by their neighbors with practicing witchcraft — were hanged. Their accusers, for the most part good and respectable people living in an immensely superstitious age, were convinced their fellow townspeople were in complicity with the devil. Charles W. Upham, a former mayor of Salem as well as the minister of the First Church of Salem and a U. S. congressman, painstakingly researched the history of the village and the notorious trials that took place there in 1692. This documented, detailed work was the first to organize the many records of this event into one account. Upham not only supplies a wealth of information on the history of Salem and the legislative and economic problems of the settlement that helped set the stage for the trials, but also provides numerous details of local hostilities that sowed the seeds of suspicion, fear, and resentment among villagers and helped fuel the witch hunt.