The Salem Witch Trials continues to captivate us more than three hundred years after the legendary colonial village was swept away by witchcraft hysteria.
Over 82,000 tourists travel to Salem, Massachusetts annually, drawn by stories of fictional sorcery and the real-life prosecution of the accused.
Too often, the names of the 255 individuals involved—including the nineteen hanged on Gallows Hill—are reduced to stock characters, the reality and intricacies of their lives buried beneath the dramatic details and their legacies smothered by Salem’s modern day carnival atmosphere.
In Six Women of Salem: The Untold Story of the Accused and Their Accusers in the Salem Witch Trials, historian and author Marilynne K. Roach chronicles the lives of six specific women involved in the witch hunt who represent the accusers, the accused, or both, and uses their unique stories to illuminate the larger crisis of the trials.
Six Women of Salem works to reconstruct the events of the trials, bringing to life this representative group of women, and examines the entire experience of the Salem Witch Trials through the eyes of those who lived through the hysteria.
Marilynne K. Roach delivers a historically intimate narrative that gives readers a front row seat to this desperate and dangerous time in history.
Roach  works as both a historian and illustrator. Her illustrations, how-to articles, and travel pieces have been featured in the Boston Globe. She’s lectured to groups ranging in age from kindergarteners to senior citizens, and is the author of the classic The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege. She is a lifelong resident of Watertown, Massachusetts.