WITCHCRAFT, ORACLES, PROPHESIES, REVELATIONS, APPARITIONS: FIRST EDITION OF BROMHALL’S TREATISE OF SPECTERS, 1658

BROMHALL, Thomas. A Treatise of Specters. Or, An History of Apparitions, Oracles, Prophecies, and Predictions, With Dreams, Visions, and Revelations. And the Cunning Delusions of the Devil. London: John Streater, 1658. Tall quarto, early 20th-century full mottled brown sheepskin, raised bands, red morocco spine label, marbled endpapers.

First edition of this classic 17th-century history of witchcraft, compiled from legend, literature, myth, and history, attractively bound.

In England, "the devil had been a problem for a while. Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft was first printed at the height of a wave of witchcraft persecutions in the 1580s, then reprinted several times in a second wave of the 1650s… Most witchcraft was defined as maleficium, inflicting harm through malice. When James VI and I came to the throne (with his experience of Scottish witchcraft), consorting with spirits, which was not the same thing as suckling a familiar, was singled out and legislated as a capital offense under the 1604 witchcraft statue… [Bromhall's book] prefigured the natural histories of spirits produced in the following decades" (Kassell, "Magic and the Past in Early Modern England," Journal of the History of Ideas 67.1: 117-20, 2006). Bromhall's 17th-century history is a glimpse into that time, a compilation drawn from the literature and records of feared and unexplained events, with selections from classical and European history, as well as the lore of his own age. Arranged into two sections: "An History of Most strange Phantasies and Apparitions" and "The Wonderfull History of Spectrals," along with "A Learned Treatise… Written in French, and now rendered into English." All sections were annotated by Bromhall with the sources from which he gathered his material. The section on "Oracles, Prophecies, and Predictions of Devils" provides a history of prognostication covering ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, Persian and Assyrian kings, and Europe in the Dark and Middle ages. The astrologer to Tiberius Caesar correctly predicted that his stepfather Augustus would recall him from exile and send a ship for him; Tiberius's nephew Claudius predicted to the month when he would be murdered, and Tiberius's grand nephew Caligula had his death predicted to the day by an Egyptian, who was sent to Rome to warn him, arriving on the very day of Caligula's death. Wing B4886. Early ink owner signature on title page. Ex-libris Harvard College Library with bookplate noting benefactor Charles Minot, the railroad executive and Harvard graduate.

Light soiling and tiny marginal repair to title page, occasional soiling to interior, mild embrowning to text, some toning to spine of binding. An extremely good copy.