About the author
Mairi Cowan is the author of The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada, published by McGill-Queen's University Press. The book reconstructs the case of a teenaged servant in Québec who, in the autumn of 1660, began to display signs read by her community as demonic possession, against a backdrop of fears about witches and magicians newly arrived in the colony. Cowan uses the episode to open onto the daily life, religious anxieties, and social tensions of a seventeenth-century French Canadian settlement, treating the possession narrative as a window onto how a community understood and managed disorder within its ranks. The book sits within the historical literature on witchcraft and possession in early North America, alongside studies of similar cases in New England, and is written for readers interested in colonial history, religious belief, and the social mechanics of accusation and community response.
📖 Where to start with Mairi Cowan
💬 What our editors say about Mairi Cowan's books
“Cowan delivers a rigorous academic analysis that is indispensable for specialists in New France’s social history. However, readers seeking a thrilling supernatural narrative or accessible popular history may find the dense focus…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada - Ingram Academic Cowan, Mairi
“Cowan delivers a rigorous academic examination of the Barbe Hallay case, weaving together celestial events, political maneuvering, and judicial outcomes. While compelling for historians of New France and scholars of gendered…”
Esoterica Books editorial team, Occult literature desk · on The Possession of Barbe Hallay: Diabolical Arts and Daily Life in Early Canada - Ingram Academic Cowan, Mairi
