It’s a subject writers – including Stacy Schiff – can’t leave alone, and with its combination of magic, religion, sexuality and the forbidden, it’s no wonder
When the Salem witch trials occurred in 1692, the colonial authorities imposed a publication ban, thinking it best if no one wrote about them. The governor, William Phips, ordered the ban upon arriving at the Massachusetts Bay colony and finding “this province miserably harassed with a most horrible witchcraft or possession of devils”. He wrote to the Privy Council that he had therefore “put a stop to the Print[ing] of any discourse one way or the other that may increase the needlesse disputes of people upon this occasion because I saw a likelihood of Kindling an inextinguishable flame.”
Suffice to say the inextinguishable flame kindled anyway.
Continue reading...
0 comments:
Post a Comment