The Cotton Mather Page
( 1663-1728 )
Major Works
Wonders of the Invisible World ( 1693 ). About witchcraft.
Magnalia Christi Americana ( 1702 ). Recently reissued as The Great Works of Christ in America. Banner of Truth Trust, which reprinted the 1853 edition in 1979 , this immense work deals with a variety of subjects related to New England's ecclesiastical history.
Bonifacius ( 1710 ). Reprinted as Essays to Do Good; Addressed to All Christians.
The Christian Philosopher: A Collection of the Best Discoveries in Nature with Religious Improvements ( 1721 ). Newly edited by Winton U. Solberg. Illinois, 1994. Mather's harmony of science and Scripture.
Manuductio ad Ministerium ( 1726 ). Subtitled Directions for a Candidate of the Ministry, this little manual deals with the spiritual and academic preparation of prospective ministers.
Diary of Cotton Mather ( First edited by Worthington Chauncey Ford, 1911; Reprint, Ungar, 1957). Valuable for the insight into the private life of Mather, with his enthusiasms, his fears, his griefs, his insecurities, and sometimes, it would seem, his doubts of his own salvation.
About Mather
Paul Boyer and Stephen Nissenbaum, Salem Possessed: The Social Origins of Witchcraft. Harvard, 1974.
________________________________, editors, Salem Village Witchcraft. Northeastern, 1993.
Chadwick Hansen, Witchcraft at Salem. Braziller, 1969.
Marion L. Starkey, The Devil in Massachusetts. Knopf, 1949; Reprint, Anchor, 1989.
Kenneth Silverman, The Life and Times of Cotton Mather. Columbia, 1985.
Barrett Wendell, Cotton Mather . Dodd, Mead, and Co., 1891.
Cotton Mather from D. Campbell.
Cotton Mather Page from The Hall of Church History.
Salem Witchcraft Trials: 1692 from Famous American Trials.
Salem Witch Trials Documents from U. of Virginia. Excellent site!
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