The earliest of the American writers, the colonials, were truly voices in the wilderness-authors of a literary heritage largely overlooked until early in the 20th century. It was then that the literary merits of sermons, autobiographies, histories, diaries, poems and elegies from the 1600s and early 1700s were seriously reassessed in light of a more sophisticated historical understanding. With this re-examination came new discoveries and a greater appreciation for the imaginative range of the Puritan mind, presented in this volume's 95 entries covering major voices of the period as well as some of the more elusive figures from America's literary past.
95 entries include: George Alsop, William Bradford, Anne Bradstreet, John Cotton, Jonathan Edwards, Benjamin Franklin, Cotton Mathe, William Penn, Edward Taylor, Nathaniel Ward, Michael Wigglesworth and John Winthrop.