Daniel Defoe

The History of the Devil, As Well Ancient as Modern Daniel Defoe

I doubt not but the title of this book will amuse some of my reading friends a little at first; they will make a pause, perhaps, as they do at a witch's prayer, and be some time resolving whether they had best look into it or no, lest they should really raise the Devil by reading his story. Children and old women have told themselves so many frightful things of the Devil, and have form'd ideas of him in their minds, in so many horrible and monstrous shapes, that really it were enough to fright the Devil himself, to meet himself in the dark, dress'd up in the several figures which imagination has form'd for him in the minds of men; and as for themselves, I cannot think by any means that the Devil would terrify them half[Pg 2] so much, if they were to converse face to face with him.