Special Collections hosts the Early Books Lecture Series XIII, an annual lecture series where University of Arizona scholars explore the treasure trove of medieval texts held by the University Libraries. In this 13th year of the lecture series, professors will give their audiences new insights into centuries-old historic texts.

Professor Tom Willard presents the third lecture in the series on the witches from Macbeth. Shakespeare took the story of Macbeth and the three “weird sisters” from a book of chronicles that he also used as the main source for several other historical plays. But his company added the character and speeches of Hecate to the text printed in the First Folio edition of his plays.

Tom Willard is Honors Professor of English, teaching undergraduate courses in Shakespeare, literary analysis, and biblical literature as well as graduate courses in comparative literature. He specializes in the esoteric thought and writing of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.