Anne Bradstreet in Context: The Life and Work of a Colonial American Poet

The collection The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America by Anne Bradstreet--the first book of poetry published by a permanent resident of colonial America--appeared in 1650 thanks to the support of Bradstreet’s brother-in-law. By this time, she had immigrated to New England with her husband; given birth to seven of her eight children; settled on her fifth and final homestead; and gained access to a network of influential Puritan leaders via the various positions held by her father, husband, brothers, and brothers-in-law within the Massachusetts Bay Colony government.

This study of Bradstreet explores the literary, religious, political, social, and familial contexts of colonial America that shaped her life and work. Bradstreet embraced her identity as a poet of her time, drawing inspiration from earlier writers as well as her contemporaries, who used a common set of stylistic conventions to explore themes of love, faith, loss, and mortality. Given the scarcity of recent scholarship on Bradstreet, this book is designed as a versatile resource--a blend of biography, literary analysis, history, genealogy, reference, and textbook--that situates Bradstreet’s poetry within the greater context of the seventeenth century.

Ann Beebe is a professor and chair of the Department of Literature and Languages at the University of Texas at Tyler. She specializes in pre-1870 American literature at the undergraduate and graduate level and has published articles on the works of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, E. D. E. N Southworth, and Phillis Wheatley.