New book unravels Salem Witch Trials
Stacy Schiff, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of "Cleopatra" and other best-sellers, is headed to Naperville to introduce her new book, "The Witches," on the Salem Witch Trials in early America.
Schiff will meet with readers and fans at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9, at North Central College's Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville. Tickets are available with the purchase of Schiff's new book from Anderson's Bookshop, 123 W. Jefferson Ave., Naperville, or online at andersonsbookshop.com. For information, call Anderson's at (630) 355-2665.
Schiff's book unravels the Salem Witch Trials in colonial America. The chapter of American history began in 1692 over a raw Massachusetts winter when a minister's daughter began to scream and convulse. When it ended less than a year later, 19 men and women had been hanged and a 75-year-old man was crushed to death.
The panic spread quickly, involving the most educated men and prominent politicians in the colony. Neighbors accused neighbors; parents and children, each other. Aside from suffrage, the Salem Witch Trials represent the only moment women played the central role in American history.
"The Witches" is the enduring American mystery unveiled by an acclaimed historian. Schiff is also the author of "Véra (Mrs. Vladimir Nabokov)," winner of the Pulitzer Prize; "Saint-Exupéry," a Pulitzer Prize finalist; and "A Great Improvisation: Franklin, France, and the Birth of America," winner of the George Washington Book Prize, the Ambassador Award in American Studies, and the Gilbert Chinard Prize of the Institut Francais d'Amérique.
All three were New York Times notable books. The Los Angeles Times Book Review, the Chicago Tribune, and The Economist also named "A Great Improvisation" a best book of the year. "Cleopatra: A Life" was published to great acclaim in 2010.
As The Wall Street Journal's reviewer put it, "Schiff does a rare thing: She gives us a book we'd miss if it didn't exist." The New Yorker termed the book "a work of literature." Simon Winchester predicted "it will become a classic." Ron Chernow wrote, "Even if forced to at gunpoint, Stacy Schiff would be incapable of writing a dull page or a lame sentence."
"Cleopatra" appeared on most year-end best books lists, including The New York Times's Top Ten Books of 2010, and won the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for biography. A No. 1 best-seller, "Cleopatra" was translated into 30 languages. Schiff's fourth book, "The Witches," was released Tuesday, Oct. 27.
Schiff has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a Director's Fellow at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library. She was awarded a 2006 Academy Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
In 2011, she was named a Library Lion by the New York Public Library. Schiff has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times and The Boston Globe, among other publications. She lives in New York City.
If you go
What: Author Stacy Schiff with "The Witches"
When: 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 9
Where: North Central College's Wentz Concert Hall, 171 E. Chicago Ave., Naperville
Cost: Purchase of book at Anderson's Bookshop
Info: (630) 355-2665 or andersonsbookshop.com