Thomas Morton of Merrymount

How did this vigorous Elizabethan, born to the "outdoors culture" of England's West Country, become America's most controversial early colonist?

What Classical and country traditions inspired Morton's notorious New English Canaan -- a perceptive, witty and often slapstick portrait, in prose and poetry, of Native New England peoples, land, creatures, and colonists?

Was this first colonial "criminal" America's first poet in English?

Despite its Macchiavellian reputation and readership, Morton's 1637 New English Canaan has been reprinted only twice, in Peter Force's Tracts (1836) and in 1883 by the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Dr. Dempsey's edition is the only Canaan whose text is collated with all known original copies in the world; and this is the first full-length biography of Thomas Morton of "Merrymount" (1576?-1647?).