New English Canaan by Thomas Morton of "Merrymount": Text, Notes, Biography & Criticism [Paperback]

Thomas Morton (Author), Jack Dempsey (Editor, Preface)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 21, 2000

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?).

Editorial Reviews

Review

"...an enormous reexamination of the issues that Morton raises....He seems after all to be our most recognizable Early American ancestor." -- National Public Radio, "A Sense of Place," series produced by Helen Borten

"...done with directness and verve that propel the reader. Dempsey has helped me go beyond my own studies....A project of fundamental significance for the humanities. If this new Canaan helps bring about the "return" of Morton, it will be a magnificent achievement." -- Richard Drinnon, Professor Emeritus of History/Bucknell University, and author of Schocken Books' Facing West: The Metaphysics of Indian-Hating and Empire-Building

"Based on collations of the sixteen surviving original copies of Canaan, Dempsey's extensively annotated presentation supersedes previous versions in textual accuracy and the thoroughness of its explanatory apparatus." -- professional journal Early American Literature Volume 34 #3, Fall 1999

"Dr. Dempsey's discreetly modernized, lavishly annotated version is worth attention. If Morton was 'America's first poet in English,' we started below scratch." -- The Atlantic Monthly, October 1999

From the Author

"America" began as a transatlantic, multicultural, and "cautious coexistence" of different races (as Colin Calloway has said). Today, only Morton's long-reviled Canaan, in the midst of our "founding father" Pilgrim and Puritan rivals' histories, bears witness to us about this long original period of contact, trade and cultural exchange between Europeans and Native Americans. Renaissance man Thomas Morton, shocked and embarrassed by the tragically-misguided Pilgrims'/Puritans' explicitly Biblical intent to conquer this inhabited country, filled his Canaan with laughter at such ethnocentric pretensions. After all, how many original colonizers "wrote home" full of cultural relativism, parodies of greedy idiotic evangelists and aristocrats, moments of comforting guilt-free sex both straight and gay, slapstick, and the demand that the English use "moderation, and discretion" toward America? And that's what makes Canaan one of the few things good for our tears, when we consider who apparently won the fundamental American "day" between "Merrymount's" kind of colony and Massachusetts Bay. I hope Morton and Canaan help to wash the cobbles off us and provide a hope-filled foundation for a transatlantic American history truly worthy of intelligent adults. And someday (I predict with "the" Script in hand) will come the agent(s) of culture, perhaps a producer/dealmaker with the spunk to make the story of Early New England (from Renaissance to Puritan times) happen as it should---on film!

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Product Details

• Paperback: 669 pages
• Publisher: Digital Scanning Inc.; 1st edition (January 21, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582181519
• ISBN-13: 978-1582181516
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.3 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #642,858 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Provocative and informative, October 19, 1999

By 

Susan Aieta ([e-mail]) (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New English Canaan by Thomas Morton of "Merrymount": Text, Notes, Biography & Criticism (Paperback)

Thomas Morton's life and influence on early America is under appreciated.In a very entertaining section of the book Dempsey reveals how Morton has been received during the course of our history.Dempsey brings to life the ebullient,prickly,roguish character that Morton was.I learned a great deal about the politics of colonial religious life especially as it effected Native Americans. Of course this influence is still with us today and Dempsey's exegesis on this subject is powerful and persuasive.This book is scholarly but also lots of naughty fun.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars About This Book, August 14, 2009

By 

Theseus "theseus" (US of A) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New English Canaan by Thomas Morton of "Merrymount": Text, Notes, Biography & Criticism (Paperback)

"How did this vigorous Elizabethan, born to the "outdoors culture" of England's West Country, become America's most controversial early colonist?"

"What classical and country traditions inspired Morton's notorious New English Canaan -- a perceptive, witty, and often slapstick portrait, in prose and poetry, of Native New England peoples, land, creatures, and colonists? Was this first colonial "criminal" America's first poet in English?"

This edition was created from and textually-collated with all known copies in the world. Additionally in this book, one finds illustrations, a chronology, an introduction, a "sampler" of commentary on Morton's writing, glossary, index. Additionally, over 40 pp of bibliographic information.

Trade paperback, 411 pp.