Bøger af Bernard Rosenthal

Herman Melville in Heaven is, at first glance, the story of a boy, a lost book, and his search to recover it. In fact, Salvatore Tarnmoor's novel-called a romance by its editor, Bernard Rosenthal-is significantly more. Young Billy may be searching for a magical book, but the purpose of his lifelong quest is to discover himself, his raison d'être. Whether the people he meets along the way tell plausible stories is not the issue; what matters is that these encounters, rational or divine, push him closer to understanding who he is. The transformations experienced by Billy during his journey mirror the changes of man as we search, question, filter the knowledge thrown our way, and then formulate our beliefs based on the people and ideas that influence us. In Billy's case, he struggles with the question asking what is real and what is not; that fine line between the divine and the demonic, between a finite life and immortality.

Salem Story engages the story of the Salem witch trials by contrasting an analysis of the surviving primary documentation with the way events of 1692 have been mythologised by our culture. Resisting the temptation to explain the Salem witch trials in the context of an inclusive theoretical framework, the book examines a variety of individual motives that converged to precipitate the witch-hunt. Of the many assumptions about the Salem witch trials, the most persistent is that they were instigated by a circle of hysterical girls. Through an analysis of what actually happened - by perusal of the primary materials with the 'close reading' approach of a literary critic - a different picture emerges, one where 'hysteria' inappropriately describes the logical, rational strategies of accusation and confession followed by the accusers, males and females alike.

This book offers a record of legal documents written in 1692 and 1693 in connection with the Salem witch trials. It is the most comprehensive collection of those records ever published, and for the first time puts them in chronological order, all transcribed from the original manuscripts.