Which Puritan minister wrote Wonders of the Invisible World about the Salem Witch Trials?

• A. Cotton Mather
• B. Jonathan Edwards
• C. Roger Williams
• D. Increase Mather

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is identifying who documented the Salem Witch Trials in a formal Puritan-era work. Cotton Mather was a leading Puritan minister in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he authored Wonders of the Invisible World, published in the early 1690s, which details the trials and discusses the belief in witchcraft and the procedures used. He was part of a prominent clerical family, though this particular book is his. In contrast, Jonathan Edwards is associated with the later Great Awakening, Roger Williams with the founding of Rhode Island and religious liberty, and Increase Mather wrote other works but not this specific volume. So the author of Wonders of the Invisible World is Cotton Mather.