Overview

Author Shirley Jackson examines in careful detail this horrifying true story of accusations, trials, and executions that shook a community to its foundations Stories of magic, superstition, and witchcraft were strictly forbidden in the little town of Salem Village. But a group of young girls ignored those rules, spellbound by the tales told by a woman named Tituba.When questioned about their activities, the terrified girls set off a whirlwind of controversy as they accused townsperson after townsperson of being witches. Author Shirley Jackson examines in careful detail this horrifying true story of accusations, trials, and executions that shook a community to its foundations.

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Here is a clear and gripping account of the events which happened in 1692 - which were to give Salem Village a permanent place on the map of religious history. It has the clear writing and emotional thinking that Shirley Jackson has exhibited in her adult short stories and books. In her introductory remarks the author establishes the climate of witchhunting that continued to envelope the Puritan church of the 17th century. She outlines the short history of Massachusetts colony and differentiates between Boston, which nationally remained more broadminded in spite of the preaching of Cotton Mather, and small Salem Village, a day's distance by horseback, which was more closely bound by convention and ripe for the ravings of Ann Putnam. The story of Ann as the ringleader of a group of girls who began innocently to listen to Mr. Parris' Indian slave, Tituba, and then made their guilt and convulsion-ridden turnabout, is matter-of-faculty told; the events bring their own horror and fascination. The facts of the case are there, along with the hysteria and the mass murder of innocent people. Surely a landmark in American history- of the sort that should make us stop to consider that all has not been pleasant or heroic. (Kirkus Reviews)

Author Information

"Shirley Jacksonwas born in San Francisco on December 14, 1916. She first received wide critical acclaim for ""The Lottery,"" which was published inThe New Yorkerin 1948 and went on to become one of the most anthologized stories in American literature. She is the author of six novels, includingThe Haunting of Hill HouseandWe Have Always Lived in the Castle;four collections of short stories and essays, includingJust an Ordinary Day;and two family memoirs,Life Among the SavagesandRaising Demons. For many years she lived in North Bennington, Vermont, with her husband, the renowned literary critic Stanley Edgar Hyman, and their four children. She died on August 8, 1965."

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