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The Witch of Edmonton has received considerable attention recently both from scholars and critics interested in witchcraft practices and also from the directors in the theatre. The play, based on a sensational witchcraft trial of 1621, presents Mother Sawyer and her local community... Read Full Overview

On 19 April 1621, a woman named Elizabeth Sawyer was hanged at Tyburn. Her story was on the bookstalls within days and within weeks was adapted for the stage as The Witch of Edmonton . The devil stalks Edmonton in the shape of a large black dog and, just as Elizabeth Sawyer makes... Read Full Overview

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... Read Full Overview

At the center of this remarkable 1621 play is the story of Elizabeth Sawyer, the titular Witch of Edmonton, a woman who had in fact been executed for the crime of witchcraft mere months before the play's first performance. Described by the authors as a tragi-comedy and drawn... Read Full Overview

On 19 April 1621, a woman named Elizabeth Sawyer was hanged at Tyburn. Her story was on the bookstalls within days and within weeks was adapted for the stage as The Witch of Edmonton . The devil stalks Edmonton in the shape of a large black dog and, just as Elizabeth Sawyer makes... Read Full Overview