MORE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD DISPLAYED, IN FIVE PARTS
Book Details + Condition: Printed in Salem, by John D. and T.C. Cushing Jr for Cushing and Appleton (1823). Scarce edition in the original publisher’s full calf leather binding. Hardcover boards measuring 7.25” x 4.5”. Originally published in London in 1700, it was reprinted in Salem in 1796, and again in 1823 (this copy). The book relates an account of the circumstances surrounding the Witchcraft trials in the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the actions of its leaders, especially those of the tremendously influential Mathers. In “More Wonders of the Invisible World”, Robert Calef, a Boston merchant who was present at the Salem Witch Trials, responds in fervent opposition to Puritan minister Cotton Mather’s “Wonders of the Invisible World”. From the title page:
- Part I. An Account of the Sufferings of Margaret Rule, Written by the Rev. Cotton Mather.
- Part II. Several Letters to the Author, &c. and his Reply relating to Witchcraft.
- Part III. The Differences between the Inhabitants of Salem Village, and Mr. Parris, their Minister, in New-England.
- Part IV. Letters of a Gentleman uninterested, endeavouring to prove the received opinions about Witchcraft to be Orthodox. With short Essays to their Answers.
- Part V. A short Historical Account of Matters of Fact in that Affair. To Which Is Added A Postscript, Relating To A Book Entitled "The Life Of Sir Wm. Phips."
Calef offers devastating criticism of the Salem Witch trials, excoriating Cotton Mather and the other clergy who took part in them. A skeptic about the existence of witchcraft, Calef argued that the trial was unjust and suggested that Mather had influenced the judges and public opinion, lighting the fires of religious fervor. "More Wonders" was the first important publication to show that the trials were a miscarriage of justice. Its publication in London in 1700 "caused a great sensation in Boston, for it not only attacked the Mathers, but included a well-documented and devastating account of the Salem trials of 1692". The book became intensely controversial - "unpublishable" - and was the subject of book burnings at Harvard University.
From the massive occult collection of King Lawrence Parker - academic, dissertation author, and book collector extraordinaire. A scarce edition in solid and clean condition: original leather boards appear to have been re-attached at some point, but the binding remains solid; Parker's bookplate to ffep and another to inside front board (that of JLM Willis, a country doctor in Maine); age toning and spotting to endpapers, as well as sporadic spotting to pages; interior is otherwise clean and free of markings.
