LibGuides: History: 79-208: Witchcraft and Witch-Hunting: Primary Sources

Primary Sources

American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 1: 1691-1820 This link opens in a new window
Over 500 titles covering 1691-1820. The magazines and journals included are broad in scope and cover all aspects of American society. To search additional series of the AAS collection at once, once connected, click "Choose Database" and select the desired series.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 2: 1821-1837 This link opens in a new window
Over 1000 titles covering 1821-1837. The journals and magazines included are broad in scope and include agriculture, entertainment, history, literary criticism, and politics. To search additional series of the AAS collection at once, once connected, click "Choose Database" and select the desired series.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 3: 1838 to 1852 This link opens in a new window
Over 1,800 titles covering 1838 to 1852. Subjects covered reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women's fashion, family life, and religion. To search additional series of the AAS collection at once, once connected, click "Choose Database" and select the desired series.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 4: 1853-1865 This link opens in a new window
Over 1,100 titles covering 1853-1865. Subjects covered reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women's fashion, family life, and religion. To search additional series of the AAS collection at once, once connected, click "Choose Database" and select the desired series.
American Antiquarian Society (AAS) Historical Periodicals Collection: Series 5: 1866-1877 This link opens in a new window
Over 2,500 titles covering 1866-1877. Subjects covered reach into every facet of American life, including science, literature, medicine, agriculture, women's fashion, family life, and religion. To search additional series of the AAS collection at once, once connected, click "Choose Database" and select the desired series.

Digital Witchcraft Collection (Cornell University)
Contains more than 3,000 books, manuscripts, and related materials.

Early English Books Online (EEBO) This link opens in a new window
Over 100,000 books, pamphlets and broadsides published in the English language in any country from 1475 through 1700. Database Guide

Early Modern Europe: The Witch Hunts
Primary sources (texts) and secondary works

Eighteenth Century Collections Online (ECCO) This link opens in a new window
Books, pamphlets, essays, broadsides and more. Based on the English Short Title Catalogue, includes over 136,000 titles (155,000 volumes) works published in the UK during the 18th century plus thousands from elsewhere. Items are primarily in English - though other languages are included.
Eighteenth Century Journals: A Portal to Newspapers and Periodicals, c1685-1835 This link opens in a new window
Contains unique and extremely rare eighteenth century periodicals between 1685 and 1835. Subjects include class and social structure, domestic and foreign affairs, colonialism & empire, literature, drama, theater, music, economics, the industrial revolution, slavery, and much more.
English Reports, Full Reprint (1220-1867) This link opens in a new window
More than 100,000 of the most important early English law case.
HathiTrust This link opens in a new window
Digitized books, journals, and government documents from all countries and time periods.
Text-mine (full text search) over 17 million digitized works and create customized collections. HathiTrust is a not-for-profit collaborative of academic and research libraries. Offers reading access to the fullest extent allowable by U.S. copyright law, computational access to the entire corpus for scholarly research, and other emerging services based on the combined collection.

Proceedings of the Old Bailey
A fully searchable edition of the largest body of texts detailing the lives of non-elite people ever published, containing 197,745 criminal trials held at London's central criminal court. NB: "in 1823 a new practice of “death recorded” was introduced, whereby judges could abstain from pronouncing a sentence of death on any capital convict whom they considered to be a fit subject for a pardon." See: Sentencing at the Old Bailey

Readers' Guide Retrospective: 1890-1982 This link opens in a new window
Search citations to the popular magazines of the day. Many have links to full text.
Sabin Americana, 1500-1926 This link opens in a new window
Works about the North, Central & South America, the Arctic & Antarctica and the West Indies.

Salem Witch Trials Documentary Archive & Transcription Project
Court records, personal letters, sermons, maps, etc.
Themenschwerpunkt Hexenverfolgung: Traktate
Treatises on witchcraft ca. 1500-1600.
The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe and The Witchcraft Sourcebook
Welcome to the companion website for The Witch-Hunt in Early Modern Europe and The Witchcraft Sourcebook, both by Brian P. Levack.

Finding More Primary Sources

The resources listed here are not the only ones available. Many others are in print or microform and can be found by searching library catalogs, like CMU's library catalog, or Worldcat, a database of library holding though out the world (though mainly U. S.). Use some of these terms combined with your topic. For this class, sources might be the best bet.

personal narratives
diaries
sources
correspondence
interviews
pamphlets
speeches
early works to 1800

For example:

witches and sources
occult and sources

It's best to have the term sources, etc. searched as a subject to get the most relevant materials.

History Librarian

Charlotte Kiger Price

she/her

Contact:

On leave until Dec. 2023. For assistance in History, contact CMU Librarian Ashley Werlinich, liaison librarian for English, Drama, and temporary liaison for History. For assistance in Modern Languages, use our general feedback forms.

Subjects: History, Language & Linguistics, Religion, Women's Studies