A Mirror for Witches is a 1928 novel by American author Esther Forbes, dealing with the witch hunt in 17th Century New England. The book, which precedes by decades the more famous The Crucible by Arthur Miller, is still popular and remains in print.[ citation needed ] It pretends to be an authentic seventeenth century chronicle of a witch's life, based on contemporary sources. [1]
The book has also been adapted for the stage, including as a ballet by Denis ApIvor (1952) [2] and as an opera, Bilby's Doll by Carlisle Floyd (1976).
Doll Bilby is a young girl, denounced by a relative as being a witch, and then caught up in the hysteria of the Salem witch trials.
The Crucible is a 1953 play by the American playwright Arthur Miller. It is a dramatized and partially fictionalized story of the Salem witch trials that took place in the Province of Massachusetts Bay from 1692 to 1693. Miller wrote the play as an allegory for McCarthyism, when the United States government persecuted people accused of being communists. Miller was questioned by the House of Representatives' Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956 and convicted of contempt of Congress for refusing to identify others present at meetings he had attended.
The Salem witch trials were a series of hearings and prosecutions of people accused of witchcraft in colonial Massachusetts between February 1692 and May 1693. More than 200 people were accused. Thirty people were found guilty, nineteen of whom were executed by hanging. One other man, Giles Corey, died under torture after refusing to enter a plea, and at least five people died in the disease-ridden jails.
Abigail Williams was an 11- or 12-year-old girl who, along with nine-year-old Betty Parris, was among the first of the children to falsely accuse their neighbors of witchcraft in 1692; these accusations eventually led to the Salem witch trials.
Denis ApIvor was a British composer, best known for his ballet score Blood Wedding. He had a parallel career as a consultant anaesthetist.
Elizabeth Proctor was convicted of witchcraft in the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was the wife of John Proctor, who was convicted and executed.
Samuel Parris was a Puritan minister in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. Also a businessman and one-time plantation owner, he gained notoriety for being the minister of the church in Salem Village, Massachusetts during the Salem witch trials of 1692. Accusations by Parris and his daughter against an enslaved woman precipitated an expanding series of witchcraft accusations.
Tituba was an enslaved Native American woman who was one of the first to be accused of witchcraft during the Salem witch trials of 1692–1693.
Bridget Bishop was the first person executed for witchcraft during the Salem witch trials in 1692. Nineteen were hanged, and one, Giles Corey, was pressed to death. Altogether, about 200 people were tried.
Esther Louise Forbes was an American novelist, historian and children's writer who received the Pulitzer Prize and the Newbery Medal. She was the first woman elected to membership in the American Antiquarian Society.
Sarah Good was one of the first three women to be accused of witchcraft in the Salem witch trials, which occurred in 1692 in colonial Massachusetts.
Gallows Hill is a 1997 supernatural thriller novel for young adults by Lois Duncan. It was her first and only young adult novel written after the death of her daughter. It was written eight years after her previous young adult novel, Don't Look Behind You. It is about a girl who moves to a small town with a secret.
Marion Lena Starkey was an American writer of history books, including The Devil in Massachusetts: A Modern Enquiry into the Salem Witch Trials. She was born April 13, 1901 in Worcester, MA to Arthur and Alice T. (Gray) Starkey. She earned a bachelor's degree from Boston University in 1922, and a master's degree from Harvard University in 1935.
Cultural depictions of the Salem witch trials abound in art, literature and popular media in the United States, from the early 19th century to the present day. The literary and dramatic depictions are discussed in Marion Gibson's Witchcraft Myths in American Culture and see also Bernard Rosenthal's Salem Story: Reading the Witch Trials of 1692
Thomas Brattle was an American merchant who served as treasurer of Harvard College and member of the Royal Society. He is known for his involvement in the Salem Witch Trials and the formation of the Brattle Street Church.
Margo Burns is a historian and linguist specializing in the Salem witch trials and related events in North Andover.
The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane (2009) is the first novel of American author Katherine Howe. It was published by VOICE, an imprint of Hyperion (publisher).
It debuted at number two on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list on June 20, 2009.
William Griggs was a medical doctor in Salem Village, Massachusetts. He is best known as the doctor who diagnosed the Salem Villagers as possessed, during the time of the Salem witch trials. Griggs was in charge of diagnosing and determining how "much" of a witch they were. Griggs claimed that the "afflicted" girls were "under an Evil hand".
Bilby's Doll is an opera in three acts composed by Carlisle Floyd. The libretto is based on the 1928 American novel A Mirror for Witches by Esther Forbes.
Andrée Howard, originally Louise Andréa Enriqueta Howard, was a British ballet dancer and choreographer. She created over 30 ballets.
Rachel Dyer: A North American Story is a Gothic historical novel by American writer John Neal. Published in 1828 in Maine, it is the first bound novel about the Salem witch trials. Though it garnered little critical notice in its day, it influenced works by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Walt Whitman. It is best remembered for the American literary nationalist essay, "Unpublished Preface", that precedes the body of the novel.
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