A space of some feet.., left Lois standing alone, with every eye fixed upon her in hatred and dread. She stood like one speechless, tongue-tied, as if in a dream.She a witch!

A young English orphan arrives in America to begreeted by an atmosphere of shadowy terror and a wave of Puritan suspicion. She settles with her uncle's family in Salem, Massachusetts, on the eve of the world's most notorious witch hunt.

A young English orphan arrives in America to begreeted by an atmosphere of shadowy terror and a wave of Puritan suspicion. She settles with her uncle's family in Salem, Massachusetts, on the eve of the world's most notorious witch hunt.

Lois Barclay is a typical ingenue: a well of affection and understanding waiting to be tapped. The New England she experiences, however, is prey to a host of fears - of Indians, of witches, of the Evil One himself. Lois finds all her attempts at friendship misunderstood, her Anglican upbringing a source of mistrust and censure, and her very attractiveness a potential curse. In this moving novella, Gaskell provides a fictionalised account of one of the victims of the Salem witch trials of 1692,using it to highlight the very human dangers of religious bigotry and sexual repression.

Foreword by fenny Uglow

Lois the Witch

Notes

Biographical note