The Stratford Library will conclude this season’s “Sunday Afternoon Talks”, its series of informative and entertaining talks featuring prominent local guest speakers, on Sunday, May 19 at 2 pm. Guest speaker Claude Clayton Smith will discuss “The Stratford Devil”, his book about Stratford’s recently exonerated witch, Goody Bassett. The talk is free and open to the public.

Claude Clayton Smith grew up in Stratford where the local legend of the recently exonerated Goody Bassett was hanged there for witchcraft in 1651. He was also intrigued by the tales of Indians and wolves, which form a crucial backdrop to his historical novel The Stratford Devil. In the first edition, written during the burgeoning feminist movement and published in 1984, Smith portrayed Goody Bassett as a woman ahead of her time. The second edition, from Pocahontas Press in 2007, was read as a critique of religious extremism, environmental degradation, wolf bounties and Native American displacement. It was part of the 15-year educational effort in support of the legislative resolution.

Professor Emeritus of English, Ohio Northern University, Smith earned his BA at Wesleyan, an MAT at Yale, an MFA in fiction from the Writers’ Workshop at the University of Iowa, and a DA from Carnegie-Mellon. He has gifted 100 copies of The Stratford Devil to the Stratford Library and all sales will directly benefit the agency. They can currently be purchased at the Library’s Check-Out Desk for $15 (cash only) and autographed copies will also be available after Smith’s talk on the 19th.

Date: May 19, 2024.

Time: 2:00pm - 4:00pm

Location: Lovell Room.

Venue:
Stratford Library
2203 Main Street
Stratford, CT 06615

For further information, call the Library at 203-385-4162 or visit https://stratfordlibrary.libcal.com/event/11345156.