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Early Modern · 1682
The Sovereignty and Goodness of God
Mary Rowlandson · c. 1637–1711
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What it is
A minister's wife taken captive by Narragansett and Nipmuc raiders describes eleven weeks of forced marches, hunger, and her attempts to read providence in it.
Why it lasted
The first American bestseller and the founding text of the captivity narrative, a genre that shaped how settlers understood themselves for two centuries.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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