The Witch of Edmonton

It is a historical phenomenon that while thousands of women were being

burnt as witches in early modern Europe, the English - although there

were a few celebrated trials and executions, one of which the play

dramatises - were not widely infected by the witch-craze. The stage

seems to have provided an outlet for anxieties about witchcraft, as

well as an opportunity for public analysis. The Witch of Edmonton

(1621) manifests this fundamentally reasonable attitude, with Dekker

insisting on justice for the poor and oppressed, Ford providing

psychological character studies, and Rowley the clowning. The village

community of Edmonton feels threatened by two misfits, Old Mother

Sawyer, who has turned to the devil to aid her against her unfeeling

neighbours, and Frank, who refuses to marry the woman of his father's

choice and ends up murdering her. This edition shows how the play

generates sympathy for both and how contemporaries would have responded

to its presentation of village life and witchcraft.