The Cornell University Witchcraft Collection, part of Cornell University Library’s Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections, contains over 3,000 titles documenting the history of the Inquisition and the persecution of witchcraft, primarily in Europe.
According to their site, “the majority of the Witchcraft Collection was acquired in the 1880s through the collaborative efforts of Andrew Dickson White, Cornell’s first President and a prodigious scholar and book collector, and his first librarian, George Lincoln Burr. Due to the foresight of White and Burr, the Witchcraft Collection has become a rich source for students and scholars of the history of superstition and witchcraft persecution in Europe. It documents the earliest and the latest manifestations of the belief in witchcraft as well as its geographical boundaries, and elaborates this history with works on canon law, the Inquisition, torture, demonology, trial testimony, and narratives. The collection focuses on witchcraft not as folklore or anthropology, but as theology and as religious heresy.”
A selection of English language books from the collection has been digitized and is available to search, browse by title, or browse by author.
These materials, as well as others sourced from different academic institutions, were microfilmed and published as Witchcraft in Europe and America. This resources has been digitized and is available only until 3/18 as part of our trial of Archives Unbound. The complete microfilm is available in the Graduate Theological Union Library‘s collection. A guide to that collection is available in the Doe Library Reference collection.