As for the characters of the persons, little is known about most of them excepting what may be surmised from a few letters, the trial record, certain broadsides written at the time, and references to their conduct in sources of varying reliability. The fate of each character is exactly that of his historical model, and there is no one in the drama who did not play a similar -and in some cases exactly the same -role in history. However, I believe that the reader will discover here the essential nature of one of the strangest and most awful chapters in human history. Dramatic purposes have sometimes required many characters to be fused into one the number of girls involved in the “crying-out” has been reduced Abigail’s age has been raised while there were several judges of almost equal authority, I have symbolized them all in Hathorne and Danforth. A NOTE ON THE HISTORICAL ACCURACY OF THIS PLAY This play is not history in the sense in which the word is used by the academic historian.
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