For three centuries, as the Black Death rampaged through Europe and the Reformation tore the Church apart, tens of thousands were arrested as witches and subjected to torture and execution, including being burned alive. This graphic novel examines the background; the witch hunters' methods; who profited; the brave few who protested; and how the Enlightenment gradually replaced fear and superstition with reason and science. Famed witch hunters Heinrich Kramer, architect of the infamous Malleus Maleficarum, and Matthew Hopkins, England's notorious "Witchfinder General," are covered as are the Salem Witch Trials and the last executions in Europe.

Mona Chollet's In Defense of Witches is a “brilliant, well-documented” celebration (Le Monde) by an acclaimed French feminist of the witch as a symbol of female rebellion and independence in the face of misogyny and persecution. Centuries after the infamous witch hunts that swept through Europe and America, witches continue to hold a unique fascination for many: as fairy tale villains, practitioners of pagan religion, as well as feminist icons. Witches are both the ultimate victim and the stubborn, elusive rebel. But who were the women who were accused and often killed for witchcraft? What types of women have centuries of terror censored, eliminated, and repressed? Celebrated feminist writer Mona Chollet explores three types of women who were accused of witchcraft and persecuted: the independent woman, since widows and celibates were particularly targeted; the childless woman, since the time of the hunts marked the end of tolerance for those who claimed to control their fertility; and the elderly woman, who has always been an object of at best, pity, and at worst, horror. Examining modern society, Chollet concludes that these women continue to be harrassed and oppressed. Rather than being a brief moment in history, the persecution of witches is an example of society’s seemingly eternal misogyny, while women today are direct descendants to those who were hunted down and killed for their thoughts and actions. With fiery prose and arguments that range from the scholarly to the cultural, In Defense of Witches seeks to unite the mythic image of the witch with modern women who live their lives on their own terms.

When evidence of dark magic begins to appear all over Salem, Massachusetts, Elemental Witch Hannah and her ex-girlfriend Veronica are forced to team up to stop the deadly attacks. "Infused with page-turning suspense, bittersweet romance, shocking twists, and tragic turns, Sterling has written a standout debut." --Dana Mele, author of "People Like Us."

From early sorcery trials of the 14th century—associated primarily with French and Papal courts—to the witch executions of the late 18th century, this book's entries cover witch-hunting in individual countries, major witch trials from Chelmsford, England, to Salem, Massachusetts, and significant individuals from famous witches to the devout persecutors. Entries such as the evil eye, familiars, and witch-finders cover specific aspects of the witch-hunting process, while entries on writers and modern interpretations provide insight into the current thinking on early modern witch hunts. From the wicked witch of children's stories to Halloween and present-day Wiccan groups, witches and witchcraft still fascinate observers of Western culture. Witches were believed to affect climatological catastrophes, put spells on their neighbors, and cavort with the devil. In early modern Europe and the Americas, witches and witch-hunting were an integral part of everyday life, touching major events such as the Reformation and the Scientific Revolution, as well as politics, law, medicine, and culture.

For fans of Lovecraft Country and Candyman comes a witchy story full of Black girl magic! One girl′s dark ability to summon the dead offers her a chance at a new life, while revealing to her an even darker future. “Practical Magic meets Black Girl Magic in this powerful addition to the YA canon. I couldn′t put it down.” —#1 New York Times Bestselling Author Victoria Schwab Katrell can talk to the dead. And she wishes it made more money. She’s been able to support her unemployed mother—and Mom’s deadbeat-boyfriend-of-the-week—so far, but it isn’t enough. Money’s still tight, and to complicate things, Katrell has started to draw attention. Not from this world—from beyond. And it comes with a warning: STOP, or there will be consequences. Katrell is willing to call the ghosts on their bluff; she has no choice. What do ghosts know of having sleep for dinner? But when her next summoning accidentally raises someone from the dead, Katrell realizes that a live body is worth a lot more than a dead apparition. And, warning or not, she has no intention of letting this lucrative new business go. Only, magic isn’t free, and dark forces are coming to collect. Now Katrell faces a choice: resign herself to poverty, or confront the darkness before it’s too late.

In her analysis of the cultural construction of gender in early America, Elizabeth Reis explores the intersection of Puritan theology, Puritan evaluations of womanhood, and the Salem witchcraft episodes. She finds in those intersections the basis for understanding why women were accused of witchcraft more often than men, why they confessed more often, and why they frequently accused other women of being witches. In negotiating their beliefs about the devil's powers, both women and men embedded womanhood in the discourse of depravity.Puritan ministers insisted that women and men were equal in the sight of God, with both sexes equally capable of cleaving to Christ or to the devil. Nevertheless, Reis explains, womanhood and evil were inextricably linked in the minds and hearts of seventeenth-century New England Puritans. Women and men feared hell equally but Puritan culture encouraged women to believe it was their vile natures that would take them there rather than the particular sins they might have committed.Following the Salem witchcraft trials, Reis argues, Puritans' understanding of sin and the devil changed. Ministers and laity conceived of a Satan who tempted sinners and presided physically over hell, rather than one who possessed souls in the living world. Women and men became increasingly confident of their redemption, although women more than men continued to imagine themselves as essentially corrupt, even after the Great Awakening.

In early modern Europe, the circulation of visual and verbal transmissions of sati, or Hindu widow burning, not only informed responses to the ritualized violence of Hindu culture, but also intersected in fascinating ways with specifically European forms of ritualized violence and European constructions of gender ideology. European accounts of women being burned in India uncannily commented on the burnings of women as witches and criminal wives in Europe. When Europeans narrated their accounts of sati, perhaps the most striking illustration of Hindu patriarchal violence, they did not specifically connect the act of widow burning to a corresponding European signifier: the gruesome ceremonial burnings of women as witches. In examining early modern representations of sati, the book focuses specifically on those strategies that enabled European travellers to protect their own identity as uniquely civilized amidst spectacular displays of 'Eastern barbarity'.