I, Roger Williams: A Novel - Softcover

Settle, Mary Lee

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393323838 ISBN 13: 9780393323832

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 2002

Synopsis

A Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2001 and a Washington Post Book World 2001 Rave.

In this beautiful and feelingly written book, Mary Lee Settle tells the story of Roger Williams: 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. He was witness to the pomp of the Star Chamber; the burning of a dissenter; and the humiliation of his master by King James and the royal favorite, the dangerously beautiful Buckingham. Haunted by ambition and love for a woman above his station, he fled to New England, where repression and conformity wore different clothes. In Settle's terrific account, the little known history of Williams emerges in layers, detailing the turbulent, dedicated life of a man committed to individuality and political freedom.

About this title

About the Author:

Mary Lee Settle won the National Book Award for her novel Blood Ties and was the founder of the PEN/Faulkner Prize. She died in 2005.

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

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 0393323838
• ISBN 13: 9780393323832
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 318