Cotton Mather

Alan J. Silva (Hamline University)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.1: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Colonial Period, 1604-1783.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Scott Slawinski (Western Michigan University)

Dates

Born 12 Feb 1663
Died 3 Feb 1728
Activity 1683-1728

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Genres and Modes

Fable

Activities

Primary

Clergyman
Historian / Chronicler
Political writer
Preacher
Religious writer
Theologian

Other

Biographer
Letter-writer/ Diarist
Pamphleteer
Poet
Scientist
Translator

Resources

Cotton Mather was the most preeminent Puritan theologian, natural philosopher, and historian in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries. As the most prolific writer in all of New England, with some 445 printed works and numerous others left behind in manuscript, Mather shaped both the religious developments of the Puritan founders and the scientific advances of the world of the Enlightenment. Never as prominent scholastically or politically as his father Increase, who was both President of Harvard and ambassador to England, Cotton Mather is nevertheless a more well-known figure today largely because of his direct involvement in the infamous Salem witchcraft trials. Mather should be equally remembered today for his epic history of New England, Magnalia Christi Americana, and for his efforts to...

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3414 words

Citation: Silva, Alan J.. "Cotton Mather". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 23 June 2005 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2984, accessed 10 June 2026.]