Anne Bradstreet

Anne Dudley Bradstreet was the first American colonist to have a volume of poems published.  Born in 1612 in England, Anne Dudley was married at age 16 to Simon Bradstreet and, not long after, traveled to New England on the Arbella.  Arrived in America, they experienced firsthand the hardships of founding a new colony, and Bradstreet expressed many of her experiences in verse.  In 1650, her brother-in-law took her manuscripts overseas and had them printed as The Tenth Muse—without Bradstreet’s knowledge!  In response to this unexpected exposure of her work, Bradstreet composed a humorous poem, “The Author to Her Book.”  Despite her humble “blushing” at the faults she saw in the poems, Bradstreet’s work was immediately popular in England.

In the early years, Bradstreet versified ancient history and composed lengthy meditations on topics like the stages of life.  Later, she noticeably shifted to personal and religious themes—and it is these works that gather the most attention today.  Her meditations on love for family, struggles with worldliness, and praises to God are not only relatively easy to relate to, but they also highlight the hopes, fears, beliefs and priorities of a New England woman in the 17th century.  Besides being a pleasure to read, Bradstreet's poetry illumines the internal life of the Puritan colonists.