When the Edinburgh bookseller David Webster gathered these tracts in 1820, he was rescuing from oblivion the actual paperwork of Scotland's witch persecutions: trial records, kirk-session minutes, eyewitness letters, and the king's own treatise, printed together for the first time. The result is one of the foundational source-books for the study of Scottish witchcraft, and very nearly everything later historians quote about cases such as Pittenweem, Torryburn, and the Fife burnings can be traced back to this slim volume.
Its most unforgettable page is to be found among the trial documents. Webster reprints the town and kirk accounts for the 1633 execution of William Coke and Alison Dick of Kirkcaldy, set down with the same flat bookkeeping a burgh would use for road repairs. "For ten loads of coals to burn them, 5 merks, £3 6 8." "For a tar barrel, 14s." "For towes" (the ropes), 6s. "To him that brought the executioner." "To the executioner for his pains, 8 14 0." The columns are totted up at the foot of the page, town's part and kirk's part, "Both, 34 11 0 Scots." It is one of the most frequently cited documents in the entire literature of the European witch hunts, and it is here in its early printed form.
The collection is wide-ranging. It opens with Webster's own "Original Essay on Witchcraft," a sober Enlightenment-era attempt to explain the persecutions as a product of ignorance rather than diabolism, then moves to the 1591 sensation "News from Scotland," recounting the North Berwick affair and the "damnable life of Doctor Fian." From that case grew the most famous demonological text in the English language, and Webster prints generous "Extracts from King James's Daemonologie," including the king's clinical description of how the Devil recruits the desperate and the vengeful and sets his secret mark upon them, a place that "remaines soare unhealed" and "ever insensible." There follow the Pittenweem letters of 1705, an "Answer of a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife, to a Nobleman" that lays out the "barbarous and illegal treatment these poor women accused of witchcraft met with," the case that ended in the mob murder of Janet Cornfoot. The Borrowstounness indictment, the trials of Isobel Elliot and others, the pricker John Kincaid's declaration, and the Torryburn kirk-session minutes with the confession of Lillias Adie round out the witchcraft half.
The volume then turns from the courtroom to the Highlands, closing with tracts on the second sight, the involuntary gift of foreseeing deaths and distant events long reported among the Gaelic-speaking population. The concluding "Brief Discourse concerning the Second Sight" is notable for its tolerance: its author has "observed many honest men, free of all scandal" who possessed the faculty, doubts that every such vision can fairly be ascribed to evil spirits, and ends by submitting his "weak conceptions on this sublime theme" humbly "to the judgment of my betters."
The present copy is a complete original of the 1820 first edition, printed by Thomas Webster, with the several internal tracts retaining their own divisional title-pages as issued. It is bound in contemporary half leather over marbled boards with the spine lettered in gilt "Tracts on Witchcraft," and the paper is largely untrimmed, preserving the generous deckle edges of the original sheets. The binding is worn and the front board nearly detached, the spine ends are chipped, and the untrimmed margins are brittle and frayed, with scattered foxing throughout. It is a working, readable copy of a book that does not appear in commerce as often as its importance would suggest, and a sympathetic repair would reward it. Original copies are uncommon in the trade; the text is institutionally held and has been digitized, so it is best described as scarce in commerce rather than absolutely rare, but it remains the cornerstone primary-source collection for anyone who studies how Scotland tried, burned, and finally doubted its witches.
WEBSTER, David, of Edinburgh, compiler (fl. early 19th century). A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight; with an Original Essay on Witchcraft. Edinburgh: Printed for D. Webster, 35, West College Street, 1820. First edition. (Colophon: Edinburgh, Printed by Thomas Webster.)
Physical Description: 8vo (approx. 22 cm). iv, [5]-183 pp. Several of the constituent tracts carry their own divisional title-pages or half-titles as issued. Largely untrimmed with deckle edges.
Binding: Contemporary half leather over marbled (shell-pattern) boards; spine with raised bands and gilt rules, lettered in gilt "Tracts on Witchcraft."
Condition: Worn. Front board nearly detached; spine ends chipped with loss; corners rubbed. Text block sound but margins brittle and frayed with some edge chipping; scattered foxing and toning throughout. Complete.
When the Edinburgh bookseller David Webster gathered these tracts in 1820, he was rescuing from oblivion the actual paperwork of Scotland's witch persecutions: trial records, kirk-session minutes, eyewitness letters, and the king's own treatise, printed together for the first time. The result is one of the foundational source-books for the study of Scottish witchcraft, and very nearly everything later historians quote about cases such as Pittenweem, Torryburn, and the Fife burnings can be traced back to this slim volume.
Its most unforgettable page is to be found among the trial documents. Webster reprints the town and kirk accounts for the 1633 execution of William Coke and Alison Dick of Kirkcaldy, set down with the same flat bookkeeping a burgh would use for road repairs. "For ten loads of coals to burn them, 5 merks, £3 6 8." "For a tar barrel, 14s." "For towes" (the ropes), 6s. "To him that brought the executioner." "To the executioner for his pains, 8 14 0." The columns are totted up at the foot of the page, town's part and kirk's part, "Both, 34 11 0 Scots." It is one of the most frequently cited documents in the entire literature of the European witch hunts, and it is here in its early printed form.
The collection is wide-ranging. It opens with Webster's own "Original Essay on Witchcraft," a sober Enlightenment-era attempt to explain the persecutions as a product of ignorance rather than diabolism, then moves to the 1591 sensation "News from Scotland," recounting the North Berwick affair and the "damnable life of Doctor Fian." From that case grew the most famous demonological text in the English language, and Webster prints generous "Extracts from King James's Daemonologie," including the king's clinical description of how the Devil recruits the desperate and the vengeful and sets his secret mark upon them, a place that "remaines soare unhealed" and "ever insensible." There follow the Pittenweem letters of 1705, an "Answer of a Letter from a Gentleman in Fife, to a Nobleman" that lays out the "barbarous and illegal treatment these poor women accused of witchcraft met with," the case that ended in the mob murder of Janet Cornfoot. The Borrowstounness indictment, the trials of Isobel Elliot and others, the pricker John Kincaid's declaration, and the Torryburn kirk-session minutes with the confession of Lillias Adie round out the witchcraft half.
The volume then turns from the courtroom to the Highlands, closing with tracts on the second sight, the involuntary gift of foreseeing deaths and distant events long reported among the Gaelic-speaking population. The concluding "Brief Discourse concerning the Second Sight" is notable for its tolerance: its author has "observed many honest men, free of all scandal" who possessed the faculty, doubts that every such vision can fairly be ascribed to evil spirits, and ends by submitting his "weak conceptions on this sublime theme" humbly "to the judgment of my betters."
The present copy is a complete original of the 1820 first edition, printed by Thomas Webster, with the several internal tracts retaining their own divisional title-pages as issued. It is bound in contemporary half leather over marbled boards with the spine lettered in gilt "Tracts on Witchcraft," and the paper is largely untrimmed, preserving the generous deckle edges of the original sheets. The binding is worn and the front board nearly detached, the spine ends are chipped, and the untrimmed margins are brittle and frayed, with scattered foxing throughout. It is a working, readable copy of a book that does not appear in commerce as often as its importance would suggest, and a sympathetic repair would reward it. Original copies are uncommon in the trade; the text is institutionally held and has been digitized, so it is best described as scarce in commerce rather than absolutely rare, but it remains the cornerstone primary-source collection for anyone who studies how Scotland tried, burned, and finally doubted its witches.
WEBSTER, David, of Edinburgh, compiler (fl. early 19th century). A Collection of Rare and Curious Tracts on Witchcraft and the Second Sight; with an Original Essay on Witchcraft. Edinburgh: Printed for D. Webster, 35, West College Street, 1820. First edition. (Colophon: Edinburgh, Printed by Thomas Webster.)
Physical Description: 8vo (approx. 22 cm). iv, [5]-183 pp. Several of the constituent tracts carry their own divisional title-pages or half-titles as issued. Largely untrimmed with deckle edges.
Binding: Contemporary half leather over marbled (shell-pattern) boards; spine with raised bands and gilt rules, lettered in gilt "Tracts on Witchcraft."
Condition: Worn. Front board nearly detached; spine ends chipped with loss; corners rubbed. Text block sound but margins brittle and frayed with some edge chipping; scattered foxing and toning throughout. Complete.
