The Correspondence of Roger Williams,
edited by Glenn W. LaFantasie, two volumes (Rhode Island Historical Society/ Brown University Press, 1988).
John Cotton, “God’s Promise to His Plantation” included in
The Puritans in America: A Narrative Anthology,
edited by Alan Heimert (Harvard University Press, 1985).
The Journal of John Winthrop, 1630-1649
, edited by Richard S. Dunn, James Savage, and Laetitia Yeandle (Harvard University Press, 1996).
John Mason,
A Brief History of the Pequot War,
included in
Puritans in the New World: A Critical Anthology,
edited by David D. Hall (Princeton University Press, 2004).
The Puritans: A Sourcebook of Their Writings,
edited by Perry Miller and Thomas H. Johnson (Dover, 2001; originally published by Harper & Row, 1963). Includes, among many others, William Bradford’s
History of Plymouth Plantation,
Edward Johnson’s
Wonder-working Providence,
John Winthrop’s “A Modell of Christian Charity,” Thomas Hooker’s “A True Night of Sin,” Anne Bradstreet’s poems, and Thomas Shephard, Jr.’s, letter to his son.
Roger Williams,
A Key into the Language of America
(Applewood Books, 1997; reprint of the fifth edition published by the Rhode Island and Providence Plantations Tercentenary Committee, 1936; originally published in London, 1643).
A Key
is included in
The Complete Writings of Roger Williams,
but this edition, issued by this heroic publisher, is especially handy and beautiful.
The Winthrop Papers,
volumes 3, 4, and 5, edited by Allyn Bailey Forbes (Massachusetts Historical Society, 1943-47).
William Wood,
New England’s Prospect
(University of Massachusetts Press, 1994; originally published in London, 1634).
John Underhill,
Newes from America
(University of Nebraska, 2007; originally published, 1638).
NOTE ON LANGUAGE
I have capitalized “God” throughout for two reasons—because the Protestants’ deity is a character Himself, and as a way of constantly reminding the reader how present and powerful and terrifying this character was in the Puritans’ lives. I have also slightly modernized some seventeenth-century spellings. There wasn’t any uniform English spelling at the time, anyway. So when quoting letters and sermons, I have, for example, changed “humili tie” to “humility” and purged the superfluous “k” from the end of “Mystick” and the extra “l” from “modell” to make the text more uniform and easier on the reader. I have also gone with the spelling “Pequot” for that tribe, even though Winthrop and others called them “Pequod” (which is of course the spelling Herman Melville went with when naming Ahab’s ship after them in
Moby-Dick
).
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
In the ten years he’s been my editor and friend, Geoffrey Kloske has never let me down. The words “I’m so lucky” and “breathing down my neck” spring to mind.
Special thanks to: Amy Vowell and Owen Brooker for once again traveling with me to places they would prefer to avoid; David Levinthal for his cover photograph; Marcel Dzama for his illustration; Steven “the Colonel” Barclay and Sara Bixler at Steven Barclay Agency; Jaime Wolf for lawyering; Laura Perciasepe, Mih-Ho Cha, and copy editor Ed Cohen at Riverhead; Nick Hornby for his Englishness and kindness, though not necessarily in that order; David Shipley at the
New York Times
for editing an essay I cannibalized herein; Ira Glass for editing a
This American Life
essay I pilfered here as well, and for his many years of friendship, partnership, and editorial stewardship—all the best ships, really; my generous theological pen pal Reza Aslan; and always and particularly Bennett Miller for being Bennett Miller.
Also helpful and/or encouraging: J. J. Abrams; Brad Bird; Eric Bogosian; Michael Comeau and Jennifer Fauxsmith at the Massachusetts Archives; Patrick Daughters; Jeremy Dibbell and Elaine Grublin at the Massachusetts Historical Society; Shelley Dick; Dave Eggers; Michael and Jamie Giacchino; Eric Gilliland; Jake Gyllenhaal; Daniel Handler; John Hodgman; Spike Jonze; Ben Karlin; Catherine Keener; Nick Laird; Lisa Leingang; Greil and Jenny Marcus; Tom McCarthy; Clyde, Dermot, Ellen, Kieran, and Michael Mulroney for their hospitality on Cape Cod; Jim Nelson; John Oliver; John Petrizzo; Christopher Quinn; David Rakoff; David Rosenthal; Rodney Rothman; David Sedaris; John-Mario Sevilla; Jonathan Marc Sherman; Zadie Smith; the Family Sontheimer; Pat and Janie Vowell for parenting; Gina Way; Wendy Weil; and Stu Zicherman.
This book is dedicated to Scott Seeley, Ted Thompson, and Joan Kim, the founding staff of 826NYC in Brooklyn. They share a reverence for words and the ideal of community with the Massachusetts Bay Colony (but not the banishing or the burning people alive). Thanks to them, the city on the hill might be Park Slope.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SARAH VOWELL is the author of
Assassination Vacation, The Partly Cloudy Patriot, Take the Cannoli,
and
Radio On.
She is a contributing editor for public radio’s
This American Life.
She lives in New York City.