New English Canaan: Text, Notes, Biography & Criticism - Softcover

Morton, Thomas

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582181519 ISBN 13: 9781582181516

Publisher: Digital Scanning, 1999

Synopsis

Until recent facsimile printings without notes, "New English Canaan" (originally published in 1637) has been reprinted only twice, one in Peter Force's "Tracts" (1836) and in 1883 by the Massachusetts Historical Society. This book represents the first edition created from and textually-collated with all known original copies in the world; it also constitutes the first full-length biography of Thomas Morton of "Merrymount" (1576-1647?).

About this title

About the Author

Jack Dempsey grew up in Stoneham, Massachusetts. With his B.A. summa cum laude in English from University of Mass. at Amherst, he began a freelance career in New York in 1979, and from there took his fiction-writing to Crete and Greece, where he published Ariadne's Brother: A Novel on the Fall of Bronze Age Crete (Athens: Kalendis & Co. 1996; Greek translation by Vicky Chatzopolou 1999), and he has lectured and published on related subjects in both countries.

Dempsey took his Ph.D. in Early and Native American Studies from Brown University (1998) and has taught at Wheaton College, Mass. He has also produced two videodocumentaries on Native and Colonial American subjects: Thomas Morton & the Maypole of Merrymount (2 hrs./1992) and Nani: A Native New England Story (1 hr./1999).

email: jd37@ici.net

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

[being the start of "The Second Book" of Canaan, "Containing a Description of the Beauty of the Country, with Her Natural Endowments both in the Land and Sea, with the Great Lake of Erocoise"---"Chapter 1: The General Survey of the Country":

"In the month of June, Anno Salutis 1622, it was my chance to arrive in the parts of New England with 30 servants, and provision of all sorts fit for a plantation. And whiles our houses were building, I did endeavor to take a survey of the country. The more I looked, the more I liked it. And when I had more seriously considered of the beauty of the place, with all her fair endowments, I did not think that in all the known world it could be parallelled. For so many goodly groves of trees, dainty fine round rising hillucks, delicate fair large plains; sweet crystal fountains and clear-running streams that twine in fine meanders through the meads, making so sweet a murmuring noise to hear as would even lull the senses with delight asleep, so pleasantly do they glide upon the pebble stones, jetting most jocundly where they do meet; and hand in hand run down to Neptune's court, to pay the yearly tribute which they owe to him as sovereign Lord of all the springs. Contained within the volume of the land, fowls in abundance, fish in multitude, and discovered besides, millions of turtledoves upon the green boughs; which sat pecking of the full ripe pleasant grapes that were supported by the lusty trees; whose fruitful load did cause the arms to bend. With which here and there dispersed you might see lilies, and of the Daphnean tree; which made the land to me seem paradise. For in mine eye, 'twas Nature's Masterpiece: Her chiefest Magazine of all, where lives Her store. If this land be not rich, then is the whole world poor...."

Edition details

• Publisher: Digital Scanning
• Publication date: 1999
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1582181519
• ISBN 13: 9781582181516
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 676
• Editor: Dempsey Jack