MORE WONDERS OF THE INVISIBLE WORLD (1700)
Book Details + Condition: University of Minnesota Press (Bainbridge, NY). Facsimile Edition, 1972. Very scarce. Hardcover measuring 7.5" x 6" with black cloth, gilt on orange background on spine. 156 pages. 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. Includes an Introduction by Chadwick Hansen. 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”.
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 very good condition, with firm binding; occult bookseller tag to inside front board; Parker's bookplate and info to rear endpapers; interior is clean and free of markings.
