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.
Captain Samuel Bellamy, later known as "Black Sam" Bellamy, was an English sailor turned pirate during the early 18th century. He is best known as the wealthiest pirate in recorded history, and one of the faces of the Golden Age of Piracy. Though his known career as a pirate captain lasted little more than a year, he and his crew captured at least 53 ships.
John Proctor was a landowner in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. He and his wife Elizabeth were tried and convicted of witchcraft as part of the Salem Witch Trials, whereupon he was hanged.
Ann Putnam was a primary accuser, at age 12, at the Salem Witch Trials of Massachusetts during the later portion of 17th-century Colonial America. Born 1679 in Salem Village, Essex County, Massachusetts Bay Colony, she was the eldest child of Thomas (1652–1699) and Ann Putnam (1661–1699).
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.
The Crucible is a 1996 American historical drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and written by Arthur Miller, based on his 1953 play. It stars Daniel Day-Lewis as John Proctor, Winona Ryder as Abigail Williams, Paul Scofield as Judge Thomas Danforth, Joan Allen as Elizabeth Proctor, and Bruce Davison as Reverend Samuel Parris. Set in 1692 during the Salem witch trials, the film follows a group of teenage girls who, after getting caught performing a ritual in the woods, band together and falsely accuse several of the townspeople of witchcraft.
Pirates of the Caribbean: Jack Sparrow is a series of novels for young readers written by Liz Braswell, Carla Jablonski, Tui T. Sutherland and other authors under the shared pseudonym of Rob Kidd. The series is published by Disney Press and was written as a literary companion to the Pirates of the Caribbean films. The books are about Jack Sparrow's teen years before he becomes a pirate. It is followed by Pirates of the Caribbean: The Price of Freedom and the series Pirates of the Caribbean: Legends of the Brethren Court, set thirteen years before the film Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
Mercy Lewis was an accuser during the Salem Witch Trials. She was born in Falmouth, Maine. Mercy Lewis, formally known as Mercy Allen, was the child of Philip Lewis and Mary (Cass) Lewis.
Rebecca Nurse was a woman who was accused of witchcraft and executed by hanging in New England during the Salem Witch Trials of 1692. She was fully exonerated fewer than twenty years later.
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
This timeline of the Salem witch trials is a quick overview of the events.
Abigail Hobbs was a girl of about 14-17 years old when she was arrested for witchcraft on April 18, 1692, along with Giles Corey, Mary Warren, and Bridget Bishop. Prior to living in Salem Village, she and her family had lived in Falmouth, Maine, the frontier of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, during a time when there were many attacks by the Wabanaki Native Americans. Her father William and mother, Deliverance Hobbs, were also both charged with witchcraft.
Elizabeth Howe was one of the accused in the Salem witch trials. She was found guilty and executed on July 19, 1692.
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.
Elizabeth Booth was born in 1674 and was one of the accused as well as one of the accusers in the Salem Witch Trials. She grew up in Salem, Massachusetts, as the second eldest of ten children. When she was sixteen she was accused of being a witch. When she was eighteen, she began accusing people of practicing witchcraft, including John Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Sarah Proctor, William Proctor, Benjamin Proctor, Woody Proctor, Giles Corey, Martha Corey, Job Tookey, and Wilmont Redd. Five of these people were executed due to Booth's testimony. Elizabeth Proctor would have been executed as well if she was not pregnant. After the Witch Trials, Booth married Israel Shaw on December 26, 1695, and had two children named Israel and Susanna. Booth's death date is unknown.
I, Tituba, Black Witch of Salem is a French novel by Maryse Condé published in 1986. It won the French Grand Prix award for women's literature.
Elizabeth Fremantle is an English novelist and teacher of Creative Writing. Her published works include Queen's Gambit (2013), The Girl in the Glass Tower (2016) and the critically acclaimed thriller The Poison Bed (2018). In 2024, a revised edition of Queen's Gambit was published as Firebrand to mark the release of the novel's adaption into a major motion picture, starring Alicia Vikander as Katherine Parr and Jude Law as Henry VIII.
Paula Brackston is the New York Times bestselling author of The Witch's Daughter and other historical fantasy novels. She also writes the fantasy crime Brothers Grimm Mystery series under the pseudonym P. J. Brackston.
