A woman who claims to be a direct descendant of Elizabeth Howe has written a novel called "The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane" about Deliverance Hazeltine Dane, a woman who was accused of witchcraft but never hung. She was the daugther in law of Rev. Francis Dane, from whom I am directly descended, and the sister of two separate Hazeltines, from whom I am also directly descended on different lines.

The book claims that Deliverance Dane was in fact a witch and that she was hung. It further claims that Deliverance had some sort of book of spells that was passed down from her through the female line (i.e., from mother to daughter). Each of these descendants she claimed were real witches able to conjure up the devil, make things move through the air and all the other nonsence. This book is very popular and had made the author a lot of money. She is currently touring Europe to promote this book.

I have several problems with this:
First, it slanders a real person who isn't here to defend herself
Second, it states that the witches who were hung were in fact witches and although she doesn't come out and say it, that they deserved to die. There are a lot of people nowadays who are totally ignorant of history. This kind of "literature" is their only source of history. As a result of this book, there are lots of people out there who think that the Salem witches were in fact witches and deserved to die. Now she is traveling around Europe spreading slander and malicious disinformation.

I know I have a personal interest in this book because she for some reason (the cool name?) picked my ancestor rather than her own to be the protagonist of this book. However, I think that anyone who is a descendant of any of these poor peopble would be distressed at the distortion of the facts.

In contrast, there's another book called Heretic's Daughter which although historical fiction, is excruciatingly true to the facts. All of the characters existed and her treatment is based on trial transcripts and other evidence. In fact, she does a great service by accurately protraying the hideous conditions under which people were held in jail during the trials, as well as how some sons of the accused (Proctor and Carrier) were physically tortured to elicit confessions. She reveals that those accused of withcraft were shackled to the walls because of the believe that they would fly away. The accused were not allowed out of the jail to exercise or see sunlight for fear that they would fly away. (In fact it was only when I read her book that I found out that some of the people who were just names in my family tree barely escaped the noose and/or died in jail.)

Most of the fiction about the trialsfocuses on the trials themselves and the hanging and not the horrible conditions under which some of these people languished for months. This book also reveals the terrible psychological toll this event took on the accused as well as their relatives, who had to furnish them with food and clothing while they were in jail. These people were in jails which were far away, some were in Boston. They didn't get fed unless their relatives brought them food or they paid a reliable person to feed them. Some of the poorer prisoners had to sell their clothes to eat.

The relatives had to pay for the cost of shackeling the accused in order to get them out on bond.

I know I can't undo the publication of the Physick book but iI see no idea why subsequent editions shouldn't include a large disclaimer that none of the stuff in it is true. I just don't know why this woman would have had to pick someone like poor Deliverance to slander as she had her own ancestor to use as a protagonist.

I am a lawyer and can tell you that there is no "case" for suing this author for slandering Deliverance and dead people are not deemed to have any reputational rights. You can literally say whatever you want about someone who is dead and the relatives and/or descendants can do nothing. My hope is that we can get other people who are descendants of people who suffered during this event to put pressure on the publisher to do something to clarify that the "theory" that some of the hung witches may in fact have been practicing witchcraft is rejected by historians and the book is made of "whole cloth" and while maybe entertaining to some people, it is hurtful to the many descendants of victims of this horrible event.