The Devil in the Shape of a Woman Witchcraft in Colonial New England

New York: W W Norton & Company. Very Good in Very Good- dust jacket. 1987. First Edition; Fourth Printing. Hardcover. 0393024784 . Some shelf wear present on DJ and boards, DJ is sun-faded on spine, short tear base of spine. Small bump to bottom edge of front board. ; A tight solid book, dustjacket in Mylar, unclipped. ; 8.20 X 5.80 X 1.30 inches; 360 pages; "Confessing to "familiarity with the devils," Mary Johnson, a servant, was executed by Connecticut officials in 1648. A wealthy Boston widow, Ann Hibbens was hanged in 1656 for casting spells on her neighbors. The case of Ann Cole, who was "taken with very strange Fits," fueled an outbreak of witchcraft accusations in Hartford a generation before the notorious events at Salem. More than three hundred years later, the question "Why?" still haunts us. Why were these and other women likely witches vulnerable to accusations of witchcraft and possession? Carol F. Karlsen reveals the social construction of witchcraft in seventeenth-century New England and illuminates the larger contours of gender relations in that society." .