[HUTCHINSON, FRANCIS]. An historical essay concerning witchcraft. With observations upon matters of fact; tending to clear the texts of the Sacred Scriptures, and confute the vulgar errors about that point. And also two sermons: one in proof of the Christian religion; the other concerning good and evil angels. by Francis Hutchinson, D. D. Chaplain in Ordinary to His Majesty, and Minister of St. James’s parish in St. Edmund’s-Bury. London: printed for R. Knaplock, at the Bishop’s Head, and D. Midwinter, at the Three Crowns, in St. Paul’s Church-Yard, MDCCXVIII. [1718].
FIRST EDITION. Leather-bound; hardcover; octavo (20 x 12 x 2.5 cm); pp. xv, [5], 270, [2]. English text. Bound in contemporary blind tooled calf; initial and terminal blanks; half-title; head-pieces; decorative initial; rear ads. Condition: VERY GOOD. Binding secure, the joints starting very slightly. Covers lightly rubbed with minor abrasions to the rear board. Interior well-preserved with a few trivial brown spots, and old inking to front endpaper partially scored out, previous owner name inked to title-page. Scarce.
Notes: The author of this work, Francis Hutchinson (1660-1739), was a British minister in Bury St Edmunds and, subsequently, in 1721 became Bishop of Down and Connor in Ireland. He studied at Katharine Hall, Cambridge where he earned a B.A. in 1681 and an M.A. in 1684. In 1698 he also received a D.D. from Cambridge. The writing of An Historical Essay Concerning Witchcraft stemmed from contemporary events that occurred during Hutchinson's lifetime, such as the infamous witch-trials that occurred in Bury St Edmunds between 1599 and 1694 and the 1712 trial of Jane Wenham. A draft of this book had been circulating since 1706, but Hutchinson was initially discouraged from publishing, finally decided to publish the book in 1718. The work rationally approached witchcraft and deconstructed and dissected the witchcraft persecutions that had taken place in East-Anglia and New-England in the years prior, with dramatic accounts. Hutchinson met, not only with Jane Wenham, but also with other survivors of the witch-hunts and regarded their persecution as the result of superstition. Historian Wallace Notestein has described Hutchinson’s work as ‘epoch-making’ and noted that it ‘levelled a final and deadly blow at the dying superstition’. Robbins states that it is 'especially valuable for its personal records of survivors . . . the Historical Essay was, in fact, a collection of famous trials interpreted from a pronounced skeptical point of view'.
References: Cambridge Alumni Database “Hutchinson, Francis (HTCN677F)”; Ian Bostridge. Witchcraft and its transformations, c.1650–1750, Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1997; Wallace Notestein, A History of Witchcraft in England from 1558 to 1718, preface, ix-xii. Chapter 5 concerns witchcraft in New England. Alden 718/89; Robbins, pages 253-54.
