I, Roger Williams [Bargain Price] [Hardcover]

Mary Lee Settle (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 31, 2001

Roger Williams, through whose eyes this great novel is told, was the most compelling figure in colonial America. Plucked from obscurity to clerk for the celebrated English jurist Sir Edward Coke, Williams had a ringside seat on the brutal politics of Jacobean London.

--This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Settle, taking the life of Rhode Island founder Roger Williams as her foundation, fills in some gaps and builds a compelling piece of imaginative autobiography, with Williams as an old man looking back over the events of his life. The facts are these: Williams was born in London in around 1603 (historians are unsure of the exact year). His family were tradespeople, but 14-year-old Roger's intelligence and facility with languages brings him to the attention of the eminent jurist Sir Edward Coke. He becomes Coke's secretary, an eyewitness to some of the major political developments of the time, and from Coke he absorbs many of the ideas, such as the separation between church and state, that shape his later career. Under Coke's patronage, Williams goes to Cambridge and becomes a member of the clergy, but his dissenting views land him in trouble. In 1630, he and his wife eventually set sail for New England. He finds the Puritan church in Massachusetts Bay just as corrupt as the church in England, and his radical stances, which include friendship with the Indians, get him banished from the colony. Making his way to Narragansett Bay, he founds Providence, and later returns to England to secure a charter. There is much fascinating material here, but some readers may be disappointed by the fact that so much of the novel deals with Williams' earlier (and most formative) days, while seeming to rush through the 50 years after his arrival in America. The language, which is meant to be true to the age, may also be a challenge. But patient readers will be rewarded, and will want to find out more about the people and events that Settle presents here. Mary Ellen Quinn
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Review

A beautiful work of art. Daring in conception, elegantly deft in execution. -- Los Angeles Times Book Review

An example of the historical novel at its best. -- Seattle Times --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 320 pages
• ISBN-10: 0393049051
• ASIN: B000IOF3PA
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.3 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,782,571 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Undiscovered Treasure, February 10, 2002

By 

David (Charleston, SC United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I, Roger Williams (Hardcover)

I stumbled across "I, Roger Williams" in the public library, while I was waiting for my wife to go through the check-out line. A brief glance was enough to capture my attention, even though I had heard nothing about this book. After a careful reading (sometimes with a dictionary at my side), I am ready to read it again. "I, Roger Williams" is a sublime work, weaving great insight about human relations with credible historical fiction. With a delicate touch Mary Lee Settle has written one of the finest works of fiction I have ever read. This is a book to read slowly and savor, as it sparks reflection about law and faith and tolerance, and it piques curiosity about historical detail. No other work of fiction has so artfully explored the continuity between old England and New England, or critiqued the weaknesses of our ancestors while celebrating their achievements. Mary Lee Settle breathes life into great men who have unjustly become footnotes for historians. And she paints the most joyous pictures of faithfulness in marriage and wisdom with aging that I have seen. I am deeply indebted to the author for her research, wit, grace, and maturity; and I recommend this work to all who have the patience to read a masterpiece.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Radical Puritan Comes to America, August 3, 2001

By 

Todd Kenyon (Brooklyn, New York USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: I, Roger Williams (Hardcover)

This is a superb novel about an era of American and English history that is today often overlooked or misunderstood. But if you've read the historian Christopher Hill on the radical Puritans during the English Revolution and are interested in the connection between that world and early America - you should read this book. Mary Lee Settle has produced a beautiful novel that justly glorifies Roger Williams - an American whose love of liberty, freedom and his God lead him to live a life that should be far better known and admired than it is today.

I have to agree, however, with the previous reviewer that the cover of the book should be reworked. If I didn't already have a strong interest in the radical Puritans who settled Rhode Island, I doubt that I would have given the book a second glance.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I, Roger Williams: A book to get us through these times, October 16, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: I, Roger Williams (Hardcover)

I, Roger Williams by Mary Lee Settle, is a tour de force. A perfectly structured fictionalized autobiograpy of Roger Williams, the book makes the origins of the United States' most important freedoms, freedom of religion, belief, speech, and the separation of church and state come alive. At the same time it conveys the human side of our forefathers and the forces that shaped their thought and actions. A must read for anyone who would wish to understand and protect democracy.