Customer Reviews

The Jamestown Adventure: Accounts of the Virginia Colony, 1605-1614 (Real Voices, Real History)

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The 20 collected writings relating to the English colony of Jamestown in Virginia, the first English settlement in America, are arranged chronologically from 1605 to 1614. This covers the time just before the arrival of the first colonists on three ships to the marriage of John Rolfe and Pocahontas. The variety of historical documents collected by the editor, a graduate of Wake Forest U., brings out the many sides of the venture of Jamestown. The struggle of the first colonists and mysteries surrounding the fate of some of them are the usual focus of the Jamestown colony. But besides these familiar subjects, Southern includes in this anthology Spanish documents evidencing concern over the colony; English papers voicing the interests and worries of investors; and references by Shakespeare to Jamestown.

Ed Southern has done an exemplary job of collecting many new and non-traditional sources of material for this essay, a welcome antidote to some of the more hagiographic tomes produced for this anniversary. For anyone interested in first class source material, this is a great place to start. I would highly recommend this for both general readers and students.