Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker [Hardcover]

Ruth Talbot Plimpton (Author), Anthony Lewis (Designer)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1994

This is the history of Mary Dyer (1611--1660) whose efforts to seek and find 'freedom to worship' led eventually to her death. Her quest began when she and her husband sailed from 'Old' to 'New' England in 1635. They were soon disillusioned by the intolerant practices and beliefs of the Puritans, who considered all truth could be found in the Old Testament -- and only there. Variations, from Puritan interpretations of the Ten Commandments, were punished by cruel torture and/or death. Banished from Boston for protesting such rigidity in belief and practice, Mary was among the group who founded Rhodes Island, where freedom in belief and practice of worship was established.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

An underlying irony surfaces in this plodding biography of the only woman in America to die for her Quaker beliefs. In 1635 Mary Dyer and her husband William emigrated to the "new" England. Pursuing freedom from the restrictive Puritanism of home, they found similar infringements on their faith in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were eventually banished and Mary, inspired by her friend, the outspoken Anne Hutchinson, became one of the group that founded Rhode Island on the premise of religious freedom for all and a modicum of women's equality. Still seeking spiritual fulfillment, she returned to England, became a follower of George Fox and, as a Quaker missionary, sailed back to the colonies. In Boston, where the general court had banished Quakers as "a pernicious sect" in 1658, she was hanged in 1660. Limning the evolution of an early crusader for civil rights, Plimpton ( Operation Crossroads Africa ) also describes Mary's relationships with Native Americans. Illustrations not seen by PW.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews

The story of Mary Dyer, executed in 1660 in Boston for her Quaker beliefs, should be an instructive walk on the darker side of American democracy--but this treatment by debut author Plimpton reads more like one of those perky biographies inflicted on middle- schoolers for a social-studies project. In retelling Dyer's life, Plimpton relies a great deal on intuitive insight, because Dyer left only two pieces of writing- -letters to the Boston authorities. As a result, the author's presentation lacks the imaginative flair of a novel or the measured restraint of a serious biography. Moreover, it's flawed further by graceless, even arch, prose: ``conversation passed between them like a fresh gushing stream''; ``the inhabitants, predominantly deer, gazed in wonder at the big sails approaching.'' The facts of Dyer's life, such as they are, are all here: How Dyer and her husband arrived in 1635 in the Bay Colony in search of a new land and a freer way of worship, only to find that the Puritans had entrenched themselves with a government that was more a theocracy then a limited democracy. The Dyers prospered, but Mary--a woman of deep spirituality--soon grew dissatisfied with the rigid Puritan theology and its emphasis on male supremacy. A friendship with the charismatic Anne Hutchinson, who believed in a ``covenant of grace,'' led to the Dyers' expulsion from Boston to Rhode Island- -but it was Mary's meeting, while on a lengthy visit to England, with Quaker founder George Fox that radically changed her life. Fearful of anything that threatened its hegemony, the Boston establishment executed her for preaching her Quaker beliefs--an act that appalled King Charles II, who, through Royal Charter, secured religious tolerance in Rhode Island, though not in Boston, where the cruel treatment of Quakers continued. A second-rate rendering of a first-rate idea: the limit of popular tolerance in early American democracy as exemplified by the life and death of one courageous woman. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 247 pages
• Publisher: Branden Books; 1ST edition (January 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0828319642
• ISBN-13: 978-0828319645
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,255,661 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars An important subject that probably deserves more..., January 5, 2001

By 

Martha E. Nelson (Watertown, Wisconsin) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker (Hardcover)

The execution of Mary Dyer is an unfortunate but important part of the early history of the American colonies. She is still a relatively unknown historical figure. I was eager to read this book, and my Quaker meeting's first day school group for adolescents read it together as well. I wanted very much to think highly of it, but it frustrated me, for some of the reasons given in the editorial review. I feel that it isn't sufficiently scholarly or serious--it often reads like a middle school social studies text, and I think Mary Dyer, in all of her own frustrating complexity, deserves better.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, February 22, 2005

By 

Reader "wyj3" (Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker (Hardcover)

This is an excellent book about somebody to whom all Americans are indebted. We could benefit from her being less overlooked in our history. The title might require an explanation: Mary Dyer could perhaps be called a rebel in relation to the ruling party in early colonial Boston, but not in relation to other Quakers after she became a Quaker.

I would not call the book "plodding" at all. Mary Dyer's life is a story almost too moving for words. The story is not fiction. In fiction, the telling is the thing, and by the rules we cannot understand anything at odds with the telling itself. But the events of this story actually happened, to be understood from the unembellished facts.

I recently began rereading this book. It is simply not as bad as the criticsm may indicate, especially in view of how little there is in print about Mary Dyer, who may well be the most important martyr for religious freedom in American history.

The word "antinomian" deserves more elucidation than the author provides. Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary gives two definitions: 1. one who holds that under the gospel dispensation of grace the moral law is of no use or obligation because faith alone is necessary to salvation, and 2. one who rejects a socially established morality. This word has its uses; the underlying issues are at least as old as the Epistles. Wanting to do away with the adjective itself as completely useless could be an indication of exactly what the adjective is about. As with any other adjective, the issue is whether the adjective rightly applies. Mary Dyer was among those accused of antinomianism in Boston, but they were far from being guilty of true antinomiansim, which might be called, after the Epistle of Jude, licentiousness in the name of grace.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An Essential Linchpin of Early Euro-America That Is Suspiciously Ignored, March 3, 2008

By 

Stephen R. Devoy (Kenai, Alaska) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker (Hardcover)

I grew up in one of the towns through which Mary Dyer repeatedly passed both while being ejected from Massachusetts and while sneaking back into the intolerant theocracy that was Massachusetts Bay Colony. Later I crossed daily, on the way to work, the very land that she and her husband farmed in Newport, the city of their exile. Despite my Massachusetts public education about the pilgrims of Plymouth and the witch burnings of Salem, the state failed to teach me and my fellow students about the woman who should be remembered as the catalyst for the self implosion of that puritan theocracy and the birth of religious liberty, not only in the United States, but in the Western world. Mary Dyer was a true martyr every bit as courageous as Gandhi and Martin Luther King Junior. We all owe her a debt of gratitude. Had I not read this book, I would have remained ignorant of this heroic woman.

As for the book itself, the author shows her inexperience with writing in her less than smooth prose and apparent unawareness of the ignorance of her audience. Some names of key players come up without needed introduction. She seems to believe that her readers can read the occasional French quotes without translation. This and many other flaws may discourage some readers, but the story itself is a beautiful and moving story well worth the effort of wading though the various defects of its telling. In a sense, I would expect this story to be told by a novice, for the professional writer most often writes for the masses and the masses are sadly unaware of the story of this beautiful woman.

For the sake of having read this book, I've found a true hero. I recommend that you read it and then think about how this strong, intelligent, and independent woman changed your life more than 350 years ago.