The Last Witchfinder Reading Guide & Discussion Questions

Book Club Discussion Questions

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For supplemental discussion material see our Beyond the Book article, and our BookBrowse Review of The Last Witchfinder.

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

Introduction

The Last Witchfinder tells of one woman's heroic quest to overturn the Parliamentary Witchcraft Act of 1604. Set in Restoration England and the American provinces, James Morrow's historical epic is a meticulously researched and richly detailed narrative of sorcery, science, and the sea change from the witch-hunting era to the Age of Reason.

Jennet Stearne, the daughter of Witchfinder-General Walter Stearne, is quick-witted, sharp-tongued, and hungry for knowledge. Under the tutelage of her beloved Aunt Isobel, our heroine acquires a passion for "natural philosophy" and an abhorrence of her father's work. After witnessing Isobel's unjust execution as a witch, Jennet makes it her life's mission to destroy the statute that sanctions the hanging and burning of innocent women.

In a tour-de-force writing performance, Morrow follows Jennet as she emigrates with her family from Colchester to America, where she becomes entangled in the machinations of the Salem Witch Court, the designs of her Nimacook Indian captors, and the bedsheets of her fascinating lover, the young Benjamin Franklin. But Jennet faces the ultimate challenge when she courageously puts herself on trial for sorcery in Colonial Philadelphia, thus sparking a monumental confrontation between two incompatible worldviews.

Set many generations ago, The Last Witchfinder features characters whose goals and obsessions sometimes seem remote from our way of thinking. Nevertheless, Jennet's adventures raise many issues—concerning religious beliefs, the scientific picture of reality, and the role of women in public life—that resonate for contemporary readers. We hope the following questions will help you connect the universe of James Morrow's novel to our modern, post-Enlightenment world.


Questions for Discussion

1. It's easy to see why Jennet Stearne calls her campaign against the 1604 Parliamentary Witchcraft Act a "quest." If it succeeds, her mission will have enormous social ramifications. But must a "quest" always be so lofty? Did you ever undertake a personal project that also felt like a quest?
2. Walter Stearne, the self-appointed "Witchfinder-General" who dominates the first third of the novel, systematically detects Satanists using such "proofs" as "swimming the witch" and pricking her supposed Devil's mark. In performing these tests, is Walter practicing a kind of science? How do Walter's "proofs" differ from the experiments with light and acceleration that Jennet and Aunt Isobel perform in chapter one?
3. In the late 1750s the playwright Oliver Goldsmith remarked that he "who would court a lady must be capable of discussing Newton and Locke." Goldsmith meant that, for his generation and those immediately before it, women no less than men took a keen interest in "natural philosophy." Does this same situation hold today? Does an intelligent man assume that his female friends will want to discuss scientific and philosophical matters?

Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Harper Perennial. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.