In this excerpt from Daily Life in Colonial New England, Claudia
Durst Johnson provides an overview of the Salem
Witchcraft Hysteria of 1692. In this selection Johnson quotes from
several period documents.
Excerpt from The Salem World of Nathaniel
Hawthorne by Margaret B. Moore, pp. 192-93; 194; 198. Margaret Moore
talks about Hawthorne's relationship with Charles Wentworth Upham, the
witchcraft historian referred to in "Alice Doane's Appeal."
Excerpt from The Salem World of Nathaniel
Hawthorne by Margaret B. Moore, pp. 44-45. Margaret Moore discusses
Hawthorne's treatment of Salem Witchcraft victim Rev. George Burroughs
in "Alice Doane's Appeal."
Excerpt from The Province of Piety:
Moral History in Hawthorne's Early Tales by Michael J. Colacurcio,
pp. 85-86. Literary critic Michael J. Colacurcio discusses the symbolism
of the unburied corpse of Walter Brome and its connection to witchcraft
victim Rev. George Burroughs.
Excerpt from Salem Is My Dwelling Place
by Edwin Haviland Miller, p. 105. Hawthorne biographer Edwin Haviland
Miller calls "Alice Doane's Appeal" "the most complex and possibly the
most important" of Hawthorne's stories and discusses Hawthorne's choices
and conflicts around the publication of his early tales.
Excerpt from Salem Is My Dwelling Place
by Edwin Haviland Miller, p. 115. Edwin Haviland Miller offers a psychological
interpretation of Leonard Doane and comments on Hawthorne's themes of
fratricide, parricide, and incest in "Alice Doane's Appeal." In this
complex tale, Miller states, "Hawthorne introduces most of the motifs
upon which for the next thirty-five years he was to play variations."
Excerpt from Salem Is My Dwelling Place
by Edwin Haviland Miller, p. 110. Edwin Haviland Miller discusses the
presence of Cotton Mather in "Alice Doane's Appeal" and the power of
the patriarchal figure on Hawthorne's imagination.
Excerpt from Salem Is My Dwelling Place
by Edwin Haviland Miller. University of Iowa Press, 1991, pp. 35-36..
Miller discusses the theme of incest in Hawthorne's writing and offers
thoughts on the view that Hawthorne's life "secret" was an incestuous
relationship he had with his sister Elizabeth.
Excerpt from The Province of Piety:
Moral History in Hawthorne's Early Tales by Michael J. Colacurcio
pp. 84-85. Michael J. Colacurcio discusses the Devil's deception of
Leonard Doane and links Leonard's psychological projection of guilt
with specter evidence in the Salem Witchcraft Hysteria. Colacurcio also
claims that in murdering Walter Brome, Leonard is murdering his "personified
incest wish."
The Story of Woodwax, Jeanne Stella, Wildflower
consultant for the Friends of Salem Woods
Excerpt from The Salem World of Nathaniel
Hawthorne by Margaret B. Moore, p. 22. Literary scholar Margaret
Moore talks about Hawthorne's use of history and the "Fireside Tradition"
of storytelling in his sketches and stories.
Excerpt from The Salem World of Nathaniel
Hawthorne by Margaret B. Moore, pp. 19-20. Margaret Moore quotes
Julian Hawthorne and discusses Hawthorne's method of storytelling.
Excerpt from Salem Is My Dwelling Place
by Edwin Haviland Miller, pp. 92-93. Miller discusses the publishing
history of some of Hawthorne's early tales and tells the story of manuscripts
consigned to the flames.
