CRITICISM

Adams, Charles Francis. Three Episodes of Massachusetts History, 5th edition, Vol. 1. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1896.

Contains generally unfavorable references to Morton and his role in New England history, and sympathetic commentary on the Puritan settlers.

Banks, Charles Edward. “Thomas Morton of Merry Mount.” Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings 58 (1925): 147-93.

Contains a number of Morton's legal papers in a discussion that is very sympathetic to Morton.

Connors, Donald Francis. “Thomas Morton of Merry Mount: His First Arrival in New England.” American Literature 11, No. 2 (May 1939): 160-66.

Suggests that Morton arrived in New England not in 1622, as stated in New English Canaan, but in 1624.

Galinsky, Hans. “History and the Colonial American Humorist: Thomas Morton and The Burwell Papers.” In Forms and Functions of History in American Literature: Essays in Honor of Ursula Brumm, edited by Winfried Fluck, Jürgen Peper, and Willi Paul Adams, pp. 21-43. Berlin: Eric Schmidt Verlag, 1981.

Comparative study of the use of humor in Morton's New English Canaan and John Cotton's The Burwell Papers.

Dempsey, Jack. “Reading the Revels: The Riddle of May Day in New English Canaan.” Early American Literature 24, No. 3 (1999): 283-312.

Discusses the poems in New English Canaan and notes that they reveal a culture of reaching out to Native peoples that was part of the Ma-re Mount colony.

Gangewere, Robert J. “Thomas Morton: Character and Symbol in a Minor American Epic.” In Discoveries & Considerations: Essays on Early American Literature & Aesthetics Presented to Harold Jantz, edited by Israel Calvin, pp. 189-203. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1976.

Examines the evolution of Morton as a character and symbol in American literature and suggests that his reputation as a villain is related to the “minor epic tradition” of the incidents at Ma-re Mount.

Major, Minor W. “William Bradford versus Thomas Morton.” Early American Literature 5, No. 2 (1970): 1-13.

Casts doubt on William Bradford's accusations against Morton, which most scholars had long accepted as being true.

Scheick, William J. “Morton's New English Canaan.” Explicator 31 (1973): Item 47.

Considers Morton's allusion to the Trojan horse in an examination of the theme of the humanity of the Indians and inhumanity of the Pilgrims in New English Canaan.

Sternberg, Paul R. “The Publication of Thomas Morton's New English Canaan Reconsidered.” Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America 80, No. 3 (1986): 369-74.

Examines evidence that suggests that New English Canaan was printed and seized at two separate times, first between 1633 and 1635 and then again in 1637.

Additional coverage of Morton's life and career is contained in the following source published by the Gale Group: Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 24.