January 7, 1982
Erica Jong
c/o Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
110 East 59th Street
He, York NY 10022
Re: Witches
Dear Ms. Jong,
Today I purchased a copy of Witches and read it cover to cover. I was especially impressed with some of your comments and observations concerning the social implications of witches in medieval and modern society. The poem "For All Those Who Died" was also quite touching.
I have one question concerning the historicity of a primary source document which you quote at length. An extract from a letter of Johannes Junius to his daughter Veronica dated 24 July 1628 appears on pages 46 through 48. The reason I'm writing is that there's no footnote, and it doesn't seem to appear in the bibliography. I'm interested to know the location of the original manuscript of the letter.
I would very much appreciate it if you would use the enclosed envelope to provide me with a bibliographic citation of the manuscript and/or its first known publication if it is no longer extant.
Thank you very mush for your time.
Very truly yours,
Despite the inclusion of a stamped return envelope, I never received a reply to the above inquiry. The letter was written well before the days of the World Wide Web. Nowadays, a simple search on a name turns up dozens of hits. For example, see...