An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft. With Observations upon Matters of Fact; tending to clear the Texts of the Sacred Scriptures, and confute the vulgar Errors about that Point.… And Also Two Sermons.

FIRST EDITION. Octavo, 270 pp., [1] leaf (ads) attractive contemporary paneled calf. No spine label. Half-title is present and the text is very fresh for its age with white pages. The rear hinge is a little weak and shaken, but an excellent contemporary copy usually found rebound or in later bindings. Housed and chemised in a quarter morocco slipcase with marbled boards and a green morocco label by the Heritage Bindery which will insure protection. British clergyman Francis Hutchinson was "the man who gave the coup de grace to the witch delusion in England" (Robbins), leveling "a final and deadly blow at the dying superstition" (Note stein). "Of most interest to him were the witchcraft accusations at Boston and Salem, and… [the case] of Jane Wenham (1712), which provoked intense passions and vicious politicking… Hutchinson's account of witchcraft is thoroughly modern a history book 'of the moment'… and his carefully modest appeal for reform of the laws on witchcraft was indeed heeded, although not for a further decade and a half" (Gibson, Witchcraft and Society, 240-41). Hutchinson's landmark work on Witchcraft is "full of valuable historical details, with many particulars collected by personal inquiry from survivors" (DNB), and features "a chronological table [including] those who were burnt as witches in New England" (Allibone, 927). Including chapters on "The Suffolk Witches" and "The Witchcrafts at Boston & in New England." Very uncommon in a contemporary state.