The Admirable Cotton Mather Author:James Playsted Wood Seldo has a major figure in America's past been more consistently derided than Cotton Mather. In many histories, he has been characterized solely as a bigot, a reactionary, and the villain of the infamous Salem witch trials of 1692. Yet there were many sides to Mather's personality and many accomplishments to his credit, as James Wood points out... more » in this biography intended to give young people a more just appraisal of the man. Like his father, Increase, and his two grandfathers, John Cotton and Richard Mather, Cotton Mather was a Congregational minister, one of the most influential in Massachusetts. Ministers in his day and place were more than men of God; there were also leaders in politics, foreign affairs, education, and literature. Mather was no exception. His biographies, poetry, histories, and theological essays have earned him a place in all serious anthologies of American literature. Mather was curious about the physical world as well as the spiritual. A Fellow of Britain's famed Royal Society, he wrote vivid scientific reports on American Flora and fauna. New developments in medicine interested him too. When Boston was struck by a smallpox epidemic, Mather championed the then novel use of inoculations against the disease in the face of hysterical opposition from Boston doctors and an attempted bombing of his home.« less