SOURCE: “The Publication, Promotion, and Distribution of Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative in the Seventeenth Century,” in Early American Literature, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1988, p. 239-61.

[In the essay that follows, Derounian discusses the dissemination and reception of Rowlandson's work from the first printing to the early 1800s, investigating various editions and how they served the book's different audiences.]

One of the first American best sellers with an estimated minimum sale of 1,000 in 1682 (Mott 303), Mary Rowlandson's only work—her dramatic first-person account of three months' captivity among the Indians in New England—was published in four editions in 1682 alone. The first edition (lost except for eight leaves used as lining papers in Samuel Willard's Covenant-Keeping) appeared in Boston; the second (the “second Addition”) and third (the “second Edition”) in Cambridge, Massachusetts; and the fourth in London. Rowlandson's narrative maintained its popularity throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries; in the twentieth century, anthologies routinely include it and critics consider it a Colonial classic. Yet despite work in such areas as history, genre studies, typology, and bibliography, not enough work has been done on other aspects of the narrative.¹ To counterbalance the lack of synthetic studies, this essay integrates available information on manuscript transmission, seventeenth-century editions, the Anglo-American book trade, book promotion, and contemporary readership and applies it to Rowlandson's work, providing greater insight into the production and publication of a Colonial text. Analyzing Colonial New England's dependence on books imported from London, David Hall concludes, “… the history of the book in early America must be understood as part of a larger story” (“Uses of Literacy” 8); the history of a single Puritan best seller like Mary Rowlandson's is part of a larger contextual story, too.

I. MANUSCRIPT TRANSMISSION

Most extant seventeenth-century editions of Rowlandson's captivity also include the last sermon of her husband, Rev. Joseph Rowlandson, preached in Wethersfield, Connecticut, on 21 November 1678, three days before he died. The narrative and sermon had separate title pages in the Boston and Cambridge editions so each could be issued either individually or together; only the London edition printed a covering title for both works. Indeed, although the Boston edition of Rowlandson's narrative no longer exists, the same edition of her husband's jeremiad survives, and it provides important information on the lost edition.

We do not know exactly where or when Mary Rowlandson wrote her narrative; however, external and internal evidence suggests she wrote it within several years of her release in May 1675. First, near the end of the work, Rowlandson mentions that she and her reunited family stayed in Boston “about three quarters of a year,” implying that they are no longer there. But the narrative concludes as Rowlandson rejoices at her family's being together again, so it is most unlikely that she wrote it after her first husband's death in November 1678. Also, in an earlier article, I present internal evidence for authorship fairly soon after Rowlandson's release by analyzing the tension between the psychological and spiritual narrative textures in her work.² I contend that during and immediately after her captivity, Rowlandson suffered from psychological trauma similar to what we now term the “survivor syndrome,” but that she tried to minimize the symptoms to conform to the Puritan doctrine of providential affliction. In writing her captivity account, Rowlandson therefore performed a personal and public service. Articulating her experiences was therapeutic (personal) because she confronted her past journey outside conventional society, yet it was also devotional (public) because she documented her present reentry into it.

Introducing Rowlandson's work in all four 1682 editions was an anonymous preface to the reader signed “Per Amicam” (“For a Friend”) in the American editions and “Per Amicum” (“By a Friend”) in the London issue. In his article on early captivity narratives, David Minter notes David A. Richards' unpublished Yale honors thesis which argues that Increase Mather encouraged Rowlandson to write the narrative, sponsored its publication, and supplied its preface (Richards 20-30; Minter 336-37, n. 7). I suggest that Mather's impact on the work came after its composition, but I agree that Mather almost certainly sponsored it and wrote its preface.

The preface Mather wrote to his most significant work, An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences (1684), opens with these words: “About six and twenty years ago, a Design for the Recording of illustrious Providences, was under serious consideration among some eminent Ministers in England and in Ireland. That motion was principally set on foot by the learned Mr. Matthew Pool, whose Synopsis Criticorum, and other Books by him emitted, have made him famous in the World.” In the introduction to his facsimile edition of An Essay, James A. Levernier summarizes the sequence of events generally considered by Mather scholars to have led to the book's publication:

Mather's role in the collection and publication of a book of providences began in 1670, when he was asked to sort through the library of the recently deceased John Davenport. Among Davenport's papers, Mather found the curious manuscript authorized by Pool. … For more than ten years Mather did nothing of consequence with the manuscript. In May of 1681, however, he presented the idea behind it to a group of ministers who had convened in Boston, and he drafted a series of proposals, printed in the preface to the Essay, which justified the publication of providences and which formulated the criteria by which they should be collected and evaluated. According to these proposals, Puritan leaders throughout New England were to “make Enquiry concerning the Remarkable Occurrents that have formerly fallen out, or may fall out hereafter,” and, after careful scrutiny, to “transmit” them to Mather for “speedy Publication.” The result was An Essay for the Recording of Illustrious Providences, intended, “as a Specimen of a more large Volumn,” which it was Mather's hope that some scholar, less busy and more energetic than himself, might undertake.

(Mather vi-vii)

That work, of course, was to be the voluminous Magnalia, published in 1702 by his son Cotton.

Sometime after May 1681, Increase Mather began collecting and then sorting the providential accounts he received concerning New England. Rowlandson's narrative was probably among them, but owing to its length, local currency, and intrinsic merit, Mather may have suggested that she publish it separately.³ Certainly, he was already very familiar with the Rowlandsons' story before Mary's narrative. As Richards points out (19, 22-23), Joseph Rowlandson asked Mather himself to intercede with the Council to redeem his wife and children; moreover, Mather provided his own version of Rowlandson's captivity experiences in several passages in his A Brief History of the War with the Indians in New England (1676). Also, William Hubbard's well known history of the Indian wars, The Present State of New-England (1677), details Rowlandson's captivity and redemption. Indeed, Rowlandson herself mentions that three months after her release, she and her husband met Hubbard near his parish of Ipswich as they travelled around trying to discover the whereabouts of their captive children. The preface to Rowlandson's own narrative states that she originally intended her story for private circulation until friends and relatives persuaded her to offer it for public consumption. Almost certainly, therefore, Rowlandson had already composed the account before Mather's request for providential experiences, that is, prior to 1681. Mather places stories of “Remarkable Preservations” in chapter two of An Essay, includes several about the Indian hostilities, but concludes, “It would fill a Volume to give an account of all the memorable Preservations in the time of the late War with the Indians” (38). His comment lends further credence to my contention that Mather would have encouraged Rowlandson to bring out a separate volume.

Furthermore, Mather was in a position to facilitate the publication of Rowlandson's narrative at the Boston press because John Foster, and later Samuel Sewall, printed many of his works, including A Brief History (1676), Heaven's Alarm to the World (first and second editions in 1681 and 1682), and A Discourse Concerning Comets (1683). Rowlandson's work probably arrived at the Boston press in the second half of 1681. Its publication would have been delayed by John Foster's long illness and eventual death in September 1681, and it may have been waiting for some time until Samuel Green, Jr., printed it in 1682 (see section II for details on Foster, Sewall, and Green).

However, the captivity could have arrived in Boston another way: with Samuel Green himself when in 1681 he moved to Boston from New London, Connecticut. George Parker Winship has pointed out that traditionally a parish honored a dead minister by arranging for his final sermon(s) to be published: a special committee would see it to press and appoint a representative to pay printing costs (261; quoted in Silver 167). After Joseph Rowlandson's death in November 1678, the minister John Woodbridge, Jr., (ca. 1644-91) moved to Wethersfield in 1679 (Weis 235) as his replacement and may have accepted the responsibility of arranging for his predecessor's last sermon to be published. The preface to Rev. Rowlandson's sermon is initialled B. W., and circumstantial evidence strongly suggests these are the initials of Benjamin Woodbridge, Jr., (16??-1709/10) the new pastor's brother, who was minister of Windsor, Connecticut, just north of Wethersfield, until some time in 1681. When the Woodbridge family (including John, Sr., who arranged for the publication of his sister-in-law Anne Bradstreet's first volume of poems and who in the 1680s was living in Newbury, Massachusetts) learned that Samuel Green, Jr., then living in New London, Connecticut, had been asked by Samuel Sewall in late 1681 to become his chief printer at the Boston press, they may have asked Green to take the sermon with him. If Mary Rowlandson's work had not already arrived at the Boston press through other channels, Green may have carried the sermon and narrative there, each with its own preface, when he moved. Conceivably, Rev. Rowlandson's old parish sponsored the publication of his sermon mainly for honorary reasons, while Increase Mather funded the publication of Mary Rowlandson's work for political ones. Someone—perhaps the business-minded Sewall—realized that it made good financial sense to issue the sermon and narrative together as well as separately and that sales would be greater if the name recognition of husband and wife were preserved. Therefore, the captivity appeared under the name Mary Rowlandson, although its widowed author had married Captain Samuel Talcott in 1679 (Greene 30). All involved were probably surprised at how quickly the narrative overtook the sermon in terms of sales, and subsequent editions presented the captivity as the major work. Of course, this series of events must remain conjectural, but such familial, social, political, and geographical networking is typical of Puritan New England and reveals the extent of its intellectual activity.

In the introduction to his critical edition of Rowlandson's narrative, Robert Diebold shows that although we can be certain the Boston edition was set from the manuscript, it is highly unlikely any later editions used the manuscript as their source. Apparently, Rowlandson herself had nothing to do with the other editions of her work in 1682. What happened to the manuscript is a mystery, but since no mention has been made of it over the centuries, we must presume it long lost.

II. SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY EDITIONS

On 9 September 1681, the Boston bookseller, printer, and engraver John Foster died of consumption. A month later, on 12 October, the Bay Colony records contain the General Court's request that Samuel Sewall manage the Boston press. Before Sewall took over, the printer James Glen may have looked after the press and printing material, and he remained there as a printer until late 1683. But Sewall really required a chief printer, so he asked Samuel Green, Jr., son of the Cambridge printer Samuel Green, Sr., to move to Boston from New London, Connecticut. Sewall needed Green, Jr., badly: “Although there are indications that at the death of Foster the press was in full operation and manuscripts were in hand ready to be printed, yet apparently nothing was printed until after the arrival of Green” (Littlefield, Massachusetts Press, II, 40). Sewall owned the press and letters, supervised production, and sold books in his bookshop, while Green actually operated the press (Tebbel 23).

Shortly after he arrived in December 1681, Green, Jr., printed the first American edition of The Pilgrim's Progress (1681), and because some space remained in the final gathering, he included some poems to honor Foster and, on the last leaf, this advertisement:

Before long, there will be published two Sermons … by Mr. Increase Mather and Mr. Samuel Willard.

As also the particular circumstances of the Captivity, & Redemption of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson; and of her Children. Being pathetically written with her own Hand

(quoted in Diebold clx).⁴

We can assume, then, that Rowlandson's captivity first appeared soon after Green's arrival, probably in March 1682. Although we know that no complete copies of the Boston edition are extant, about ten percent of the text has been recovered from waste sheets used as lining papers in two separate copies of Samuel Willard's Covenant-Keeping, printed by James Glen for Sewall's press in 1682. The extant Boston edition of Rev. Rowlandson's sermon does not include a printer's name, and we therefore cannot be certain whether James Glen or Samuel Green, Jr., printed the sermon and captivity narrative; however, from all available evidence, Green is a more likely candidate than Glen.

During Sewall's management, the Boston press kept very busy and produced over twenty books as well as official government documents. With the backlog of work resulting from Foster's death, the press was in no position to deal with reprinting. As an article on early proofreading practices explains, “When a printer with one or at most two presses had a book on the stocks, he could do nothing else till he had printed it off” (Simpson 16). We must therefore imagine the following situation in Boston: Rowlandson's book was rushed off the press so the two overworked printers could tackle the next project; there was little way to anticipate its immediate popularity, and the press could not risk delaying new books by resetting type, so it had to go elsewhere to be reprinted. The obvious choice was the Cambridge press, where a number of works for and about the Indians had been published; underused since 1678 and virtually inactive after 1681, it was still managed by Samuel Green, Sr. (Roden 141-42). Since the Boston edition formed the source for not only the Cambridge editions but also the London edition, a copy of the Boston edition may have been sent to England at the same time another copy was sent to Cambridge. Alternatively, a copy may not have been sent overseas until second and third editions assured a sponsor that Rowlandson's work warranted a European edition, whether that edition was to be distributed there, reimported to New England, or both.

The title page of the 1682 Cambridge second edition (the “second Addition”) contains the phrase “Corrected and amended,” prompted partly by promotional considerations and partly by an erratum note for Rowlandson's narrative at the end of the extant Boston sermon by her late husband. Although Green, Sr., might have received a copy of the manuscript to set the next edition, the preferred method was for printers to work from a printed text when possible, and the announcement of a corrected second edition suggests that the Cambridge printing followed this standard practice and worked from the now lost first edition.

An interesting aspect of both Cambridge editions is that James the Printer (or James Printer, as he came to be called), the Christian Indian who appears as a minor character in Rowlandson's narrative, may have set some of the text. Before King Philip's War, James the Printer was apprenticed to Green, Sr. When war broke out, he was accused of participating in the Lancaster raid, and although acquitted, he ran away to join the Indians: he even acted as an Indian scribe during Rowlandson's ransom negotiations. Taking advantage of an amnesty offer, James the Printer returned to his old trade, probably working in Boston until about 1680 and then rejoining Green, Sr., in Cambridge to work on the second edition of the Indian Bible from 1680 to 1685 (Littlefield, Early Massachusetts Press, II, 77). He was therefore definitely in Cambridge when Green, Sr., published the second and third editions of Rowlandson's book. George Parker Winship argues that one of the typesetters at the Cambridge press “had an undeveloped phonetic sense that governed his spelling” (342), and he strongly suspects the Indian. Diebold cites numerous examples of phonetic misspellings throughout the first Cambridge edition and concludes that while English spelling was not standardized at this time, an unusually large number of errors appears in this—and even the next—Cambridge imprint (clxxiv). Therefore, the misspelling of “Addition” on the title page of the second edition, added to the other errors, points to James the Printer as the culprit.

On the title page of the third edition (the “second Edition”), the spelling error has been corrected and within the volume there are other corrections, leaf resettings, and type font changes. “Obviously,” observes Diebold, “the narrative was selling well enough to justify Green in the time and expense necessary to reset approximately 70٪ of the text” (clxxv). In the reset pages, the Cambridge “Edition” follows the “Addition” rather than the Boston edition. Yet Diebold reaches the startling and disturbing conclusion that in these reset pages, the “Edition” varies from the “Addition” about as much as the “Addition” varies from the Boston. Most variants are not substantive, and of the one or two substantive variants per reset page, more are word omissions than word substitutions (clxxviii). Once again, we may detect the hand of James the Printer, whose unfamiliarity with English syntax would make him more likely to omit than to substitute wording.

We do not know through exactly which agency Rowlandson's narrative reached London to be reprinted there in its fourth edition. At the bottom of the Boston title page of Joseph Rowlandson's sermon are the names of two booksellers: John Ratcliffe and John Griffin. As I suggest in section III, either of them could have shipped the work overseas, and, if Ratcliffe returned to England after he left Boston in 1682, he could have taken it in person. However Rowlandson's narrative actually arrived in England, once there it was advertised in the 1682 Michaelmas (November) Term Catalogues (see page 249 for the full text of this notice). The end of this advertisement names the publisher as Thomas Parkhurst, a Presbyterian whose links with America gained him “a reputation for publishing the literary output of New England's clergy (including Cotton Mather's Magnalia)” (Botein 53). But Parkhurst did not, in fact, publish the captivity, for the actual imprint gives the bookseller's name as Joseph Poole. Very little information is available about Poole, and his only known imprint is Rowlandson's narrative. Although the presence of these two names might suggest another lost edition, in fact books were often registered under a different name from that appearing in published copies; therefore, we can conclude that there was a single London edition (Diebold clxxix). As I suggest in section III, the name recognition of Thomas Parkhurst may have been used in The Term Catalogues to boost sales.

Collation of the texts of all four 1682 imprints shows that the London edition was set from the Boston. Even if this evidence were not conclusive, the time frame confirms this transmission, for between six and eight months elapsed between the appearance of the Boston edition (not before March) and the book notice in the Term Catalogues (November). This period would have allowed for recognition of the success of the first edition, for the long sea voyage, for the English reprinting, and for notice that the book was available. The second, third, and fourth editions, then, were all set from the Boston, but because of the many variants in the two Cambridge issues, the London edition is probably the most reliable of the available seventeenth-century texts (all textual quotations in this essay are therefore from the London edition).

III. THE ANGLO-AMERICAN BOOK TRADE

Because the English publishing world thought the Colonial market was limited, “the trade between London and American dealers tended to be sluggish until the middle of the eighteenth century”; what trade there was in the late seventeenth century “took form within networks of religious affiliation” and complex “personal and ideological alliances” (Botein 50-52).⁵ Through these connections, Mary Rowlandson's narrative, accompanied by Joseph Rowlandson's last sermon, found its way into Nonconformist publishing circles in England.

R. W. G. Vail surmises that the lost Boston edition of Rowlandson's work must have carried the same imprint as her husband's extant sermon, which identifies the two Boston booksellers as John Ratcliffe and John Griffin (31-32). Ratcliffe was an English bookbinder who came to Boston in the 1660s but apparently left in or just after 1682, perhaps to return to England (Littlefield, Boston Booksellers 95-96). Although further records on Ratcliffe are not available, if he did return to England he could have taken a copy of the first edition with him. Griffin came to America in 1679, and Sewall's diary records his death in November 1686. He was probably an agent for Benjamin Harris, the anti-Catholic publisher who, from the mid-1680s to the mid-1690s, established a brisk business in both London and Boston with his son Vavasour (Botein 54). Again, Rowlandson's captivity could have been sent to England by Griffin, who in 1682 still had contacts in the English publishing world, or possibly even by Harris himself.

In addition to common personnel, the Anglo-American book trade in the late seventeenth century shared some common characteristics. For example, publishing conditions were comparable, but while the American book industry showed lack of development because it was still in its infancy, the English book industry showed arrested development for other reasons. First, the Civil War took its toll, for although printing quantity increased, quality decreased. The recovery of the English book trade was hampered further by three catastrophes: the Licensing Bill of 1662, by which the Crown usurped the authority of the Stationers' Company; the plague of 1665, in which many printers died and many bookshops closed down; and the Great Fire of 1666, which destroyed books, presses, and paper around St. Paul's Churchyard, London's chief bookselling district (Plant 34).

Also, “The situation in England and New England was one of small press runs and limited circulation for most items. Press runs for quartos and octavos could dip as low as 300 or 400 copies, and rarely went above a maximum of 1,500” (Hall, “Uses of Literacy” 26). Up to 1635, editions were limited to 1,500 copies in England (excluding the Bible and other works given a special waiver). This limit was raised to 2,000 in 1635, but even so it was “exceptional” to overprint an edition unless heavy sales were assured (Bennett 227). Paper was simply too expensive. As regards circulation in England, research suggests that at the time of the Civil War, “the London book trade may have scarcely touched the artisans and yeomanry of the countryside save for occasional chapbooks and broadsides” (Hall, “Uses of Literacy” 26-27). Similar information is not available for New England, and investigation is complicated by the fact that so many books were imported. From what we do know, however, the distribution of books in both markets was limited geographically and socially.

To combat these difficulties, the two markets might reprint books which were “steady sellers” or take a chance and print books that might become “steady sellers.” David Hall defines these staples of the seventeenth- and eighteenth-century publishing world as “books that went through five or more editions in New England in a period of at least fifty years” (“Uses of Literacy” 29, n. 80). (Precise definitions for European steady sellers would presumably vary from this description for New England.) In the 1660s and 1670s, for instance, publisher-printers like Marmaduke Johnson and Samuel Green, Sr., at the Cambridge press watched the London market for suitable titles to reprint. These two entrepreneurs also tried to assess in advance what local productions might become steady best sellers—and certainly chose right with The Day of Doom. How does Rowlandson's work fit into this scheme of steady sellers? Technically it conforms to Hall's definition since five editions came out within fifty years: four in 1682 and the fifth in 1720. However, a sixth edition did not appear until 1770. I suggest that in Rowlandson's case, the American and then the English market thought it recognized a steady seller. After the initial success of the limited Boston edition, second and third editions were rushed off the antiquated Cambridge press. Meanwhile, the first edition was sent or carried to London and was used to set the fourth edition. By this time, however, the popular market was saturated in America, and apparently was not overly receptive in England, so the book did not appear again until 1720. Only with the sixth edition in 1770 do we see a regular pattern of reprinting established for the next century, by which time the Anglo-American book trade had superimposed “[i]mpersonal and ideologically neutral modes of transaction” on the earlier religious, personal, and political networks (Botein 56).

IV. BOOK PROMOTION

Even in the seventeenth century, a rudimentary type of book advertising existed in Old and New England that might include advance notices in previously published volumes, copy in newsbooks or newspapers, and entries in publishers' lists like The Term Catalogues. Unusually, for a book by a woman, Rowlandson's narrative was promoted on both sides of the Atlantic.

In section II, we saw that Samuel Green, Jr., ran an advertisement in his edition of The Pilgrim's Progress for several works in press, including Rowlandson's. This advertisement not only provides facts about the book's publication, but also adds information to whet a prospective reader's appetite: he will learn many details (“particular circumstances”) about the experience; he will see how a mere woman and her children tried to survive; and he will read a first-person account written “pathetically,” that is, according to seventeenth-century usage in OED, “movingly” and “earnestly.” The emotionalism underlying the book advertisement should have helped sales, as should its inclusion in Bunyan's masterpiece, which quickly established itself as the single best-selling work in America and England, excluding the Bible and certain other devotional or popular works like Aesop's fables (Mish 358).

In England, notice of Rowlandson's narrative appeared in The Term Catalogues under the heading of History. Since only approximately one-third of all published books were entered there, it is significant that the captivity is in this minority. The full entry reads:

The History of the Captivity of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, a Minister's Wife in New England; with her cruel and inhumane Usage amongst the Heathens for eleven Weeks, and her Deliverance from them. Written by her own Hand, and now made publick: with a Sermon annexed, of the possibility of God's forsaking his Children. Quarto. Both printed for T. Parkhurst at the Bible and Three Crowns in the Poultry.

(I, 507)

This advertisement is longer than the one appearing in America, and it includes several other sales features. For example, the description of the Indians as “Heathens” and their treatment of Rowlandson as “cruel and inhumane” heightens the sensationalism. Using the name of the well known publisher Thomas Parkhurst, rather than that of the little known bookseller Joseph Poole, may have discharged a sales function, too. The infamous John Dunton was once apprenticed to Parkhurst. But instead of the bitter remarks he often reserves for fellow publishers and booksellers, in 1705 he reminisces about his then powerful old master in very complimentary terms as “the most eminent Presbyterian Bookseller in the Three Kingdoms, and now chosen Master of the Company of Stationers. … He has met with very strange success; for I have known him sell off a whole impression before the Book has been almost heard of in London” (I, 205). Perhaps Parkhurst did originally agree to publish Rowlandson's narrative, or perhaps his name was used only for publicity.

The different titles under which Rowlandson's narrative was published in America and England furnish another example of advertising awareness. The first three editions, titled The Sovereignty & Goodness of God …, stressed the work's religious content, while the fourth, titled A True History of the Captivity & Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, highlighted its historical content. Each title contains almost verbatim phrases from its advertisement, showing that the title was probably the basis for the advertisement in the first place. Furthermore, the American title is echoed in the preface, where the author directly confronts the reader: “Here Reader, you may see an instance of the Soveraignty of God, who doth what he will with his own as well as others. …”

In England, a book might be promoted in The Term Catalogues with an advance or current notice like the one just quoted. But also, since 1646, regular notices of books appeared in newsbooks. First printed as actual news items, after 1655 these notices were generally placed in a separate section on the back page of early newspapers. The first advertisement for an American book in an English newspaper was for John Norton's Doctrine of Godlinesse, which appeared in the Perfect Diurnall number 242, dated 20 March 1648 (McCutcheon, “Americana” 85-87). These early book notices varied tremendously in length and complexity—from a simple statement to a virtual review—but even at this early stage, “Most of the technical elements in reviewing are to be found, often in embryo, to be sure, but unmistakable” (McCutcheon, “Beginnings” 706). At the time Rowlandson's book was first published, there were no New England newspapers to advertise a work like hers, and even later on, one study concludes, “Newspaper advertising indicates that exploitation of a ‘reading public’ was far more intensive in the mother country than in America” (Botein 50).

In the British Library's Burney Collection of early English corantos, newsbooks, and newspapers, I searched through the most influential contemporary newspapers—The London Mercury, The Observator, and the London Gazette—to see if they contained a book notice or review of Rowlandson's work. In addition, I checked the French Journal des Sçavans and its English counterpart, Weekly Memorials for the Ingenious, both book abstracting journals for busy readers, containing digests of the “principal” new books in such areas as botany, medicine, geography, economics, and general science. Predictably, however, Rowlandson's work did not attract any attention in these journals. Philip McCutcheon points out in his article on the beginnings of book reviewing in English newspapers that “it is most unusual at this time to find a woman's book noticed, particularly with any deference to her sex.” Occasional reviews of women's works might appear (McCutcheon quotes a favorable review of Elizabeth Warren's Spirituall Thrift, for example), but they were rare (“Beginnings” 699-700).

Perhaps we can conclude that the popular potential of Rowlandson's work—what Hall calls the “mating of morality with sensation” (“World of Print” 176)—made it worth placing advance notices in different media in Massachusetts and London. However, the very fact that its appeal was more popular than academic meant that a review or abstract in a serious journal was extremely unlikely.

V. READERSHIP

We have seen that Sewall's busy Boston press first published Rowlandson's work; that its unexpected popularity warranted second and third editions put out by the almost idle Cambridge press; and that the fourth edition appeared in London. The American editions were intended for an American audience, but the English edition, while primarily for an English audience, was intended for readers on both sides of the Atlantic. Colonists' work was published in London to reach a larger audience, to disseminate controversial material, or to attract the attention of critics and intellectuals (Tebbel 15). The first reason seems to have been foremost in the minds of those publishing an English edition of Rowlandson's captivity. But since colonists themselves preferred the prestige of imported books and considered local publications provincial (Lehmann-Haupt 49)—though there is little evidence that the quality of New England publishing was any worse than that in London—the English quarto edition was almost certainly reimported to the Colonies.

As we know, the title page of the first edition is no longer extant, but an examination of the title pages of the Cambridge and London editions reveals significant modifications in appealing to different primary audiences. On the function of title pages in the seventeenth century, H. S. Bennett observes, “The fulness of the title-pages, so distressing to us in their overcrowded display, had an immediate purpose in tempting the reader to purchase the volume” (216). What distinct strategies targeted Colonial as opposed to English readers?

Let us deal first with the title page from the Cambridge editions, the same except for the misspelling of “Edition” discussed in section II (see cover illustration). Records show that from 1682 to 1685, John Usher, Boston's leading bookseller, imported 3,421 books from a single English dealer, of which 1,524 were religious works (Hart 15), and it is universally acknowledged that within New England, the main output of the Massachusetts presses themselves was either official or devotional. For an American Puritan audience that relished religious works of all kinds, the title of Rowlandson's narrative, The Sovereignty & Goodness of God …, conveyed general spiritual subject matter; only after this title came the explanatory, and more specific, subtitle, Being a Narrative of the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson. The attack on Lancaster and the fact of Rowlandson's capture were so well known that the author needed no identification beyond her name. Two Puritan literary conventions follow: the first establishes the author's willingness to convert personal experience to public belief, “Commended by her, to all that desires to know the Lords doings to, and dealings with Her”; and the second anticipates the criticism that she has sought a wider sphere of influence than that permitted for a woman, Especially to her dear Children and Relations. However, statements on title pages that a work has been “amended, digested, revised” must be taken very cautiously, since such claims were often merely promotional (Bennett 214). In Rowlandson's case, too, the Cambridge title page seems to function only as a sales pitch.

Another disclaimer concerning Rowlandson's motive for publishing stresses the work's private nature but also, as an inducement to read, suggests that the reader can share something originally personal, Written by Her own Hand for Her private Use, and now made Publick at the earnest Desire of some Friends, and for the benefit of the Afflicted. One scholar draws attention to these very words because they show the narrative “was a devotional exercise … related to the discipline of meditative self-examination” and because they form “the same rationale that was commonly given for publication of an individual's secret exercises as a devotional manual” (Hambrick-Stowe 258). This conventional claim also reassures readers—the majority of whom would have been male—that Rowlandson possesses personal humility and that she has allowed her book to be published not to put herself on a level with male authors, but to perform a public service. Finally, the quotation from Deuteronomy emphasizes the title's description of God as sovereign and good, reiterates the doctrine of providential affliction, and points to an accepted technique the author uses throughout her work of following narrative details with biblical references to place the specific events in a wider typological perspective.

Turning now to the English title page (see figure 1), we can see several changes designed to appeal mainly to an English audience. Late seventeenth-century English readers were interested in factual information about the Indian and his culture (Bissell 5), and this interest helps account for the emphasis on verisimilitude evident in the change of title from Narrative to True History. Moreover, while the Rowlandson's story was well known in New England and doubtless circulated orally before Rowlandson published it seven years later, she has to be identified as “A Minister's Wife in New-England” for the English audience to clarify the relationship between her work and that of her husband, both mentioned on this title page.

The next section on the title page, concerning the composition and publication of the narrative, serves the same function as that on the identically worded Cambridge title page. It assures readers that Rowlandson wrote the work without intending to publish it, but that she was persuaded to do so. The author of the preface further emphasizes Rowlandson's personal humility: “… though this Gentlewomans modesty would not thrust it into the Press, yet her gratitude unto God, made her not hardly perswadable to let it pass, that God might have his due Glory, and others benefit by it as well as her selfe.”

Before printing information, the London title page refers to Rev. Rowlandson's “Last Sermon” but presents it as strictly secondary to the main narrative, to which it is “annexed”; indeed, Rev. Rowlandson himself takes second place to his wife by being described as “Husband to the said Mrs. Rowlandson.” The sermon title suggests in general (“God's Forsaking a People”) what the captivity title shows in particular, and together, the announcement of these works indicates a family disaster the London audience would want to read more about. According to Margaret Spufford's study of English popular reading, “Dying fathers, mothers and brothers could only be rivalled in emotional appeal, apparently, by dying ministers. … A minister's words already carried great weight; the further authentication given them by the approach of death was obviously supposed irresistible” (203). Therefore, publishing the two works together might have been an attempt to capture the popular market for both historical and devotional works.

On the aspects of a book's prefatory material most designed to appeal to a reader, Bennett states, “If the title-page cajoled him to read thus far there was often an explanatory preface or advertisement to the reader telling him something about the alleged merits of the book. Novelty was, of course, constantly emphasized” (217). As we know, in American and English editions of Rowlandson's work, a preface did indeed follow the title page to further promote the narrative and its narrator. The author, almost certainly Increase Mather, repeatedly refers to the reader and heightens details to encourage him to continue reading:

… none can imagine, what it is to be captivated, and enslaved to such Atheistical, proud, wild, cruel, barbarous, brutish, (in one word) diabolical Creatures as these, the worst of the heathen; nor what difficulties, hardships, hazards, sorrows, anxieties, and perplexities, do unavoidably wait upon such a condition, but those that have tried it.

The preface suggests the novelty value of the work and provides background information: an English audience might respond to the unfamiliar place and experience, but would also learn the historical context; while an American audience might respond to the new genre of narrative literature, yet would also linger over familiar information.

It is now time to consider more closely the American and English readerships of Rowlandson's captivity. In several recent articles, David Hall has broadened traditional definitions of intellectual history by applying the history of print to the high culture of elites but more especially to the popular culture of other groups. He believes that the printed word in early New England was roughly continuous with that in Europe, and that therefore we can make certain assumptions about readership in both places (“World of Print” 167). One such assumption concerns the difference between “intensive” and “extensive” reading practices. The intensive, or traditional, world of print furnished steady sellers with unchanging formulas, but the extensive world of print catered to those craving novelty and change: “In effect two major rhythms crisscrossed in the marketplace: one of change, the other of repetition. A constant recycling of tried and true literary products accompanied the publication of new styles and genres” (168). The best of the early American best sellers—including Rowlandson's captivity, Michael Wigglesworth's The Day of Doom, and Cotton Mather's execution sermon on the pirate James Morgan—combined intensive and extensive patterns to reach many social strata over a period of time.

For example, we know that in New England the worthies John Cotton, Samuel Sewall, and Thomas Prince owned copies of Rowlandson's work. Yet against this elite ownership, we must set the scores of more humble owners, readers, borrowers, stealers, and listeners (much reading at this time was out loud). Kenneth Lockridge's statistics imply a much lower literacy rate than we normally associate with seventeenth-century New England: 50 percent for men and 25 percent for women. Hall, however, believes these figures are misleadingly low (“World of Print” 173). Rowlandson's narrative is a prime example of a work that could establish and maintain its popularity in the literate and less literate marketplace where oral and printed material converged. The likely American readership of Rowlandson's captivity was therefore large, though its ownership was more restricted, since only the professionals and the wealthy could afford to buy books frequently (Hall, “Uses of Literacy” 8).

The English readership of Rowlandson's captivity probably also splits into elite and popular groups, though information is far more conjectural. We do know that Samuel Sewall, in an early example of his lifelong habit of giving books, sent copies of works printed while he managed the Boston press (12 October 1681 to 10 September 1684) to his English uncles Stephen and Nathaniel Dummer. In two accompanying letters (one dated 1684-5 and the other 2 February 1684-5), Sewall mentions that the book box contained 600 copies of the Westminster Assembly Catechism, twelve of Urian Oakes' last artillery sermon, and six editions of Rowlandson's narrative. (In these letters, too, Sewall says he is sending the Catechisms and sermons because he himself printed them, thus raising the tantalizing question of whether he also printed Rowlandson's work.)⁶ Sewall instructs his uncles to distribute the Catechism to his relatives' children and to the village youth, and to give the minister a copy of Oakes' sermon and Rowlandson's narrative. Sewall apparently found it appropriate to send Rowlandson's narrative in the company of the Catechism and Oakes' sermon A Seasonable Discourse; he also considers the sermon and narrative appropriate gifts for a country clergyman. We can assume this unknown vicar would be typical of most seventeenth-century professionals in reading and owning books, since one analysis of book ownership in England up to the mid-seventeenth century claims, “… professional folk, lawyers, schoolmasters, and clergy possessed some of the most extensive libraries” (Clark 101). Although information for post-Revolutionary England is very sketchy, Nonconformist professionals would have been likely to show interest in Rowlandson's work, especially considering that The Term Catalogues identified Parkhurst as the publisher.

If Rowlandson's work should have appealed to an English nonconformist professional class, do we have any evidence that it may also have appealed to a lower reading class? The rise in book ownership did not result just from higher education and living standards, it had “a dominant religious content and theological motif” (Clark 109), shown by the fact that Bibles and prayer books were by far the most owned volumes for rich and poor. The late seventeenth century saw a large demand for “practical divinity,” which “formed an important feature of the stock-in-trade of the smaller booksellers” catering to popular taste (Aldis 334). The Pilgrim's Progress is the best example of such a work, and Rowlandson's captivity can be interpreted as an American version of the same story. However, though English editions of Bunyan's masterpiece circulated widely throughout the provinces, it seems, from Sewall's letters to the Dummers, that Rowlandson's narrative did not reach a provincial audience there. In England, A True History was probably intended for a London readership of both professionals and non-professionals.

Research on the survival of mid-seventeenth century English books confirms that later editions of a work are more likely to survive than earlier ones because the market becomes saturated and copies are less handled because less read (Willard 178). Apparently, the American market for the work did overfill as current captivities began to take its place; its fate in England remains unclear. The existence of over a dozen copies of the fourth edition and the fact that Rowlandson's work did not go into a fifth edition until 1720 imply that it needed to go out of print until a later, more exclusively intensive, readership could respond to its enduring qualities.

Notes

1. See, for example, the following important studies. Full citations are given in the Works Cited section:

   History: Diebold, Greene, Leach, and Ulrich

   Genre Studies: Hambrick-Stowe, Kolodny, Minter, Pearce, and Slotkin

   Typology: Downing

   Bibliography: Diebold, Hart, Littlefield (both works), Mott, and Vail.

2. Kathryn Zabelle Derounian, “Puritan Orthodoxy and the ‘Survivor Syndrome’ in Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative.”

3. I thank my colleague James A. Levernier for first suggesting this possibility to me.

4. Some of the basic bibliographical information in section II depends on Diebold's exhaustive introduction to his critical edition of the narrative.

5. Botein constitutes the most thorough treatment of this subject to date. He pinpoints one reason there is such a gap in our knowledge of this area when he says, “Little of the literature on ‘the book in America’ adopts the ‘imperial’ perspective of metropolitan London; on the other hand, few of the many scholars who have investigated the book trade in eighteenth-century England have shown much interest in exportation to the colonies.” He concludes that “an overview of basic entrepreneurial trends is still lacking” (48).

6. Because these two letters are not widely available, and because they are of such interest, I quote them in full here. The texts are from Jennison.

   To Stephen Dummer:

   Honored Sir,—That which comes from far is many times for that reason enquired after and regarded, which otherwise had been neglected, the consideration of which hath occasioned my sending you a small box of y^e assemblies catechises to be distributed to my relations children and yours in the first place, and then to the youth of Bishop Stoke, as a token of love from him who was born and baptized at the same place. They were composed with my own hand, so that if they kindly and in good part receive these small books, and especially the doctrine of Christian religion summed up in them, they shall thereby extremely oblige me their countryman, who am by God's providence removed far off from them upon the sea. I have enclosed twelve sermons of Mr. Oakes, and six of Mrs. Rowlandson's narratives. The box is marked B. S. No: A. Have ordered into cousin Edward Hull's hand within Algate, who will pay the wagoner you shall direct him to send it by.

   We are in good health here at Boston, and so our friends at Newbury are so far as I know. John Poor of the neck died the beginning of this winter.

   samuel sewall

   1684-5

   To Nathan^l Dummer, Feb. 2, 1684-5.

   Loving Uncle: It so fell out that not long since I was the owner of a printing press and Letters, and practised something myself in that science. Not to mention other things, I composed the Assemblies Cathechism with y^e proofs, and Mr. Oakes's Artillery Election Sermon at Cambridge. Now though my dear countrymen may have catechises, yet perhaps they have none printed by one born at Horton amongst themselves, or however not at Boston in N. E. Wherefore have sent six hundred of them in a small box, which entreat the young persons of Bishop Stoke will kindly accept from him who cannot but affectionately remember his native soil. I know not the quantity of your families. If you have to spare, let Baddesley next partake. I writ to my uncle, M^r St. Dummer, but not having mentioned the number (as I think) I give you this. You had best give Cous. Hull advice by whom and whither to send them. He will pay the Wagoner.

   Brother Stephen buried a lovely son Dec^r. 24 last, some moneths old. Are all well. William Moody, eldest son of Samuel Moody, married sister Mehitabel, 18^th Nov^r. last. Should have gone near to have written to the minister of your parish, but it seems Mr. Husedon is gone, and know not the man's name. My kind remembrance to yourself, and good wife and friends. Please in my name to intreat your present pastor's acceptance of one of M^r. Oakes's Sermons, and M^rs. Rowlandson's Narrative. Let the eldest son, or daughter if no son, of my dear aunts Mehitabel and Sarah, receive as y^e mothers should if living.

   I rest your loving Cousin,

   saml. sewall

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Arber, Edward, ed. The Term Catalogues. 3 vols. London, 1903. Vol. 1, 1668-82.

Bennett, Henry S. English Books and Readers, 1603-1640. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1970.

Bissell, Benjamin. The American Indian in English Literature of the Eighteenth Century. Yale Studies in English No. 68. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1925.

Botein, Stephen. “The Anglo-American Book Trade Before 1776: Personnel and Strategies.” In William L. Joyce et al., eds. Printing and Society in Early America. Worcester, Mass.: American Antiquarian Society, 1983. 48-82.

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Clark, Peter. “The Ownership of Books in England, 1560-1640: The Example of Some Kentish Townfolk.” In Lawrence D. Stone, ed. Schooling and Society. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1976. 95-111.

Derounian, Kathryn Zabelle. “Puritan Orthodoxy and the ‘Survivor Syndrome’ in Mary Rowlandson's Indian Captivity Narrative.” Early American Literature 22 (1987): 82-93.

Diebold, Robert K. “A Critical Edition of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative.” Diss. Yale Univ., 1972.

Downing, David. “‘Streams of Scripture Comfort’: Mary Rowlandson's Typological Use of the Bible.” Early American Literature 15 (1981): 252-59.

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