A Mirror for Witches

First Edition, Second Issue, title in red and black, wood engraved frontispiece, twelve wood engraved plates by Robert Gibbings, publishers black cloth, 8vo, London, William Heinemann, 1928.

A Mirror of Witches is set in Salem during the witch trials of 1691 and 1692, following Doll Bilby, a girl accused of being a witch by her relatives. Based on contemporary sources, it is written as an authentic seventeenth century chronicle of a witch’s life. Forbes persuasively demonstrated the toll of the trials and the pressure to confess through her imaginative reconstruction of the spirit of the time.

Esther Forbes (1891-1967) American novelist, children’s writer and historian. She was born in Westborough, Massachusetts. Her father was a judge and her mother a researcher of local history. After graduating from Bradford Academy in 1912, she studied History at the University of Wisconsin. Forbes’ research and writing skill established her prominence among historical novelists.

A Mirror for Witches was incredibly popular, with a second issue being printed just two months after the first, and still remains in print today. Forbes’ work precedes the more famous The Crucible by Arthur Miller by decades, and has also been adapted for the stage; as a ballet by Denis Aplvor (1952) and as an opera, Bilby’s Doll by Carlisle Floyd (1976).

[Past Imperfect, Towner, 1993; The Cambridge Guide to Women’s Writing in English, Sage, 1999]