Cursed lives

MARION GIBSON recommends an evocative deep-dive into a witchcraft trial that rocked 17th-century New England

- MARION GIBSON

The Ruin of All Witches: Life and Death in the New World

by Malcolm Gaskill Allen Lane, 336 pages, £20

In February 1651, in the little settler town of Springfield, Massachusetts, Jonathan Taylor woke in terror in the middle of the night. “Snakes!" he exclaimed to his perplexed wife. In a dream or vision that had seemed to Jonathan wholly real, snakes slithered towards him as he lay in bed, bit him on the forehead and spoke the word “death”. Jonathan fell into a malaria-like fever and pretty soon, he joined a crowd of fellow townspeople accusing the brick-maker Hugh Parsons and his troubled wife, Mary, of witchcraft. The Ruin of All Witches is the story of Hugh and Mary's trial, their lives before being accused, the tragic breakdown of their relationship, and their eventual fate.