DOI

10.1162/TNEQ_a_00472

Abstract

What was Lydia Prout’s “dreadfullest thought”? This microhistory, which examines one of the earliest devotional journals penned by a woman in British North America, uncovers surprising connections between the “unruly passion” of a devoted mother who suffered repeated bereavements during the 1710s and the Satanic fantasies of Salem witchcraft confessors in 1692. An annotated edition of Prout’s journal is reproduced in the essay’s appendix.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

9-2015

Publisher Statement

Copyright © 2015, MIT Press Journals. This article first appeared in The New England Quarterly: 88:3 (2015), 356-421.

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