Magnalia Christi Americana

By Cotton Mather. A history of early New England, including biographies of many ministers. The online text is available at Internet Archive and at Google Reader.

The book quotes Borellus on the subject of the reanimation of the dead. The book also discusses witchcraft in the Second Book, Chapter XII, Section 16 and in the Sixth Book, Chapter VII (titled Thaumatographia Pneumatica).

The Magnalia includes an anecdote that inspired Carter's story "The Attic Window" [HPL Unnameable (online text)]:

At the southward there was a beast, which brought forth a creature which might pretend to something of an human shape. Now, the people minded that the monster had a blemish in one eye, much like what a profligate fellow in the town was known to have. This fellow was hereupon examined; and upon his examination confess'd his infandous Bestialities; for which he was deservedly executed.
—Magnalia, Book VI, Chapter V, "Historia Nemesios; Relating Remarkable Judgments of God," in the subsection headed "The Tenth Remark." (Thanks to S. T. Joshi for tracing this reference in the footnotes to his HPL collection, The Dreams in the WitchHouse.)

In a letter to Joseph Curwen, Jebediah Orne referred cryptically to the Magnalia: "But I would have you Observe what was tolde to us aboute tak'g Care whom to calle up, for you are Sensible what Mr. Mather writ in ye Magnalia of ———, and can judge how truely that Horrendous thing is reported." [HPL Case (online text)]

Richard Upton Pickman said that Cotton Mather knew things he didn't dare put into the Magnalia [HPL Pickman (online text)].

An old man living in an isolated house in the Miskatonic Valley had a rotting, bulky copy of the Magnalia [HPL Picture (online text)].

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