author
George Lincoln Burr
1857–1938
A Cornell historian with a gift for turning difficult chapters of European and American religious history into clear, searching prose, he became especially known for his work on witchcraft and persecution. His career also placed him close to the making of Cornell’s great historical collections and to the circle of university founder Andrew Dickson White.
1 Audiobook
The literature of witchcraft
by George Lincoln Burr
About the author
Born in New York in 1857, George Lincoln Burr grew into one of Cornell University’s best-known historians. He studied there as an undergraduate and was soon drawn into the orbit of Andrew Dickson White, serving as White’s librarian and secretary and helping build the remarkable library collections that supported their historical research.
Burr later joined Cornell’s faculty and became widely respected for his scholarship in medieval history, the Reformation, and the history of superstition, witchcraft, and religious persecution. Readers still encounter his name most often through works on witchcraft, where his careful documentary approach helped shape how later generations understood those episodes.
He died in 1938, leaving behind a reputation not only as a historian and teacher but also as a steward of books, manuscripts, and evidence. That combination of archival curiosity and moral seriousness gives his writing much of its lasting appeal.