Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth [Paperback]

Anonymous (Author), Dwight Heath (Editor)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1986

Originally printed in 1622, this is the first published account of the coming of the Pilgrims to the New World to settle Plymouth Plantation.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

The author has decided to remain anonymous because this was the only way she felt completely free to explore a woman's secret life. As she writes in the afterword to the novel, "That doesn't mean this is a memoir; it's many things to me, fiction and nonfiction, fantasy and fact, a quilt pieced together not just from my own stories but those of my friends." She was also inspired to embrace anonymity by the book that inspired her own, an anonymous and very daring Elizabethan manuscript entitled "A Woman's Worth.

Product Details

• Paperback: 128 pages
• Publisher: Applewood Books (September 1, 1986)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0918222842
• ISBN-13: 978-0918222848
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 4.9 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #259,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > History > Americas > United States > State & Local

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent concise history as seen by those who made it, December 5, 2001

By 

Neera "designer & animal lover" (Renton, WA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Paperback)

This is an excellent book. The unknown author ("Mourt") describes in detail the accounts of life during the settlement of the Pilgrims. "He" describes the account in a day-to-day style, accounting for making food, building houses, and encounters with the indigenous peoples. The Pilgrams' travels to find a home and the actual settling are fascinating and well described. I will never think of the Pilgrims or indigenous peoples the same way again. Overall, this book is very insightful.

The language is archaic, I feel I must warn you. But if you can get past that, and you like colonial history, you'll love this one. It will give you a much better idea about the Pilgrams, far beyond the over-dramatized and unrealistically happy Thanksgiving story.

38 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent First-Hand Account, January 23, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Paperback)

An excellent, easy-to-read account of the explorations made by the Pilgrims after their arrival at Cape Cod in 1620. The book, first published in 1622, describes in a day-by-day format just about everything that occured from the Mayflower's arrival up to and including the First Thanksgiving

21 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful and Surprising, October 30, 2001

By 

Ethan Cooper (Big Apple) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mourt's Relation: A Journal of the Pilgrims at Plymouth (Paperback)

This delightful little book describes the first year of the Pilgrims in America. Written to make life in Massachusetts sound like an adventure in a bounteous land, the book ignores the extreme hardship of the first winter and instead focuses on the rich resources of Massachusetts and the relationship the Pilgrims developed with the Indians. Here, the book drives home two points: (1) Europeans had long come to North American to fish and trade. These activities left a mixed legacy that the pilgrims had to overcome. (2) The Indians were everywhere. In fact, the first trip by the Pilgrims to visit chief Massasoit was motivated in part by this fact: Indians families were coming in great numbers to Plymouth to look at the English and interact with them. This was keeping the English from focusing on their farming. A wonderful book!