Samuel Sewall, the author of the most vivid and most entertaining diary written by an American Puritan, also wrote one of the first antislavery tracts in America, The Selling of Joseph ... (1700). As the only judge in the infamous Salem witchcraft trials who publicly recanted his position, he achieved lasting fame as a man of conscience who had higher regard for truth than for his public image. Sewall's writings also include judicial decisions, essays, tracts, translations in English and Latin, and more than fifty poems.

Sewall, born of a well-to-do merchant family at Bishop Stoke in Hampshire, England, was brought to America at the age of nine in 1661. After grammar school and further careful preparation by Oxford-educated Dr. Thomas Parker, he entered Harvard, then presided over by Charles Chauncy. At Harvard (1667-1671) he shared for two years both room and bed with the poet Edward Taylor, his lifelong friend...