Mary Rowlandson, née Mary White, ranks as one of the most well-known and important writers of seventeenth-century, colonial American literature. The Sovereignty and Goodness of God or A True History of the Captivity and Restoration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson (1682), her autobiographical account of her eleven weeks and five days of captivity among New England Wampanoag and Narragansett tribes, places her among just a handful of New England women writers whose works were published and circulated during that time, and her work helps to initiate and popularize the genre of the captivity narrative and influence the later development of American slave narratives.
Rowlandson was born to John, a farmer, and Joan[e] (née West)…
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Citation: Oberholtzer-Lee, Heidi. "Mary Rowlandson". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 17 June 2013 [https://staging.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=3869, accessed 22 November 2024.]
