History/GWS 249 Reading Guide
Early Voices: Travel Narratives
Texts:
- Mary Rowlandson (c.1635-1678), The Sovereignty and Goodness of God, Together with the Faithfulness of His Promises Displayed, Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, (Boston, 1682). Note: Please follow the Project Gutenberg instructions—“We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an electronic path open for the next readers”—or print a copy of the text. Then, scroll through “The Small Print” until you get to the narrative, or go to this LINK on the Project Gutenberg website.
- “Preface to the Reader,” Per Amicum [“By a Friend”—most likely Reverend Increase Mather] from the 1682 edition. .pdf
Questions:
Note: Rowlandson's book was one of the first "Indian captivity narratives" published in the colonies, and perhaps only the second book written and published by a New England woman. Scholars originally thought her 1682 narrative was published posthumously, four years after her presumed death in 1678. Recent research shows that her husband, Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, died in Wethersfield, Connecticut, in 1678; Mary Rowlandson was granted a widow's pension by the church. Within a year, she married Capt. Samuel Talcot of Connecticut. She died in Wethersfield in 1711.
- How do her themes, subjects, and methods compare and contrast with Bradstreet's?
- In what ways did Mary Rowlandson’s perspective resemble that of other late-seventeenth-century women?
- How does Rowlandson's account of her experience compare and contrast with the characterization by "Per Amicum" in "The Preface to the Reader"?
Further reading:
- Sarah Kemble Knight (1666-1727), The Journal of Madam Knight (1704), read the entries for Oct. 2 to Dec. 21, 1704; Dec. 24, 1704 to the end.