The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Cleopatra analyzes the Salem Witch Trials to offer key insights into the role of women in its events while explaining how its tragedies became possible. It began in 1692, over an exceptionally raw Massachusetts winter, when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. It ended less than a year later, but not before 19 men and women had been hanged and an elderly man crushed to death.

Describes the social and religious conditions surrounding the Salem witch hunts, the extensive trials and executions, and the aftermath of the hysteria.

"I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history," Arthur Miller wrote in an introduction to The Crucible, his classic play about the witch-hunts and trials in seventeenth-century Salem, Massachusetts. Based on historical people and real events, Miller's drama is a searing portrait of a community engulfed by hysteria. In the rigid theocracy of Salem, rumors that women...

After 300 years, three sister witches are resurrected in Salem Massachusetts on Halloween night, and it us up to two teenagers, a young girl, and an immortal cat to put an end to the witches' reign of terror once and for all.

"It's no surprise that the historic Massachusetts seaport's history is checkered with violence and heinous crimes. Originally called Naumkeag, Salem means "peace." However, as its historical legacy dictates, the city was anything but peaceful during the late seventeenth century. Did the reputed Boston Strangler, Albert DeSalvo, strike in Salem? Evidence supports the possibility of a copy-cat murder. From the recently pinpointed gallows where innocents...

"Haunted since its construction by fraudulent dealings, accusations of witchcraft, and sudden death, the House of the Seven Gables is now home to shop-keeper Hepzibah Pyncheon and her brother Clifford, who has just completed a thirty-year sentence for murder. Their wealthy but unpleasant cousin, Judge Pyncheon, arrives for a visit, hoping to find the deed to the house, but his plans fall apart when someone is murdered. The House of the Seven Gables...

Martha Carrier was one of the first women to be accused, tried and hanged as a witch in Salem, Massachusetts. Like her mother, young Sarah Carrier is bright and willful, openly challenging the small, brutal world in which they live. Often at odds with one another, mother and daughter are forced to stand together against the escalating hysteria of the trials and the superstitious tyranny that led to the torture and imprisonment of more than 200 people...

After 300 years, three sister witches are resurrected in Salem Massachusetts on Halloween night, and it us up to two teenagers, a young girl, and an immortal cat to put an end to the witches' reign of terror once and for all.