Barbara Kochick
Barbara Kochick asked Stacy Schiff:

While doing the extensive research involved in this book, did you find much conflicting information?

Stacy Schiff Indeed and on many fronts. With this book it's the material that does NOT conflict that indicates something is amiss: When three convulsing girls see the same woman perching on a beam of the meeting house, working her witchcraft, you have some explaining to do. Some of the greatest conflicts come in Cotton Mather's accounts of the trials and in his accounts of prior witchcraft epidemics. It is fascinating to see an eminent minister attempting to shape the story, with selective passages and creative elisions.

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