Includes bibliographical references and index.

What really happened in the witchcraft persecutions of sixteenth and seventeenth century England? Reading Witchcraft examines the stories told by and about witches and their victims through the trial records, early news books and personal accounts left by people caught up in a deadly and mysterious historical puzzle. Looking closely at these "first-hand" accounts, Marion Gibson shows that their representations of witchcraft are far from simple: they changed over time and according to the source and context of each story. Witchcraft was not such a clearly defined crime as has been supposed, and people spoke or wrote of it in a variety of unexpected and thought-provoking ways, demonstrating humor, fantasy, reportage, investigation and condemnation in fascinating combinations.