A Measure of Light

by Beth Powning

  New England and Puritans:

  American Jezebel: The Uncommon Life of Anne Hutchinson, Eve LaPlante, HarperSanFrancisco, 2004; Child Life in Colonial Times, Alice Morse Earle, Dover Publications, 2009, originally pub. 1899; Documentary History of Rhode Island, Howard M. Chapin, Preston and Rounds Co, 1919; Everyday Life in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, George Francis Dow, The Society for the Preservation of New England Antiquities, Boston, 1935; Home Life in Colonial Days, Alice Morse Earle, Jonathan Davis Publishers, Inc., 1975, original publication 1898; John Josselyn, Colonial Traveller, ed. Paul Lindholdt, University Press of New England, 1988 (original pub 1674); Puritanism and the Wilderness, Peter N. Carroll, Columbia University Press, 1969; Saints and Strangers: New England in British North America, Joseph A. Conforti, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006; Slumps, Grunts and Snickerdoodles, Lila Perl, Clarion Books, 1975; The Antinomian Controversy, 1636-1638: A Documentary History, ed., introduction and notes David D. Hall, Wesleyan University Press, 1968; The Healer’s Calling: Women and Medicine in Early New England, Rebecca S. Tannenbaum, Cornell University Press, 2002; The Journal of John Winthrop 1630-1649, ed. Dunn and Yeandle, Belknap Harvard, 1996; The Puritan Dilemma: The Story of John Winthrop, Edmund S. Morgan, Little, Brown, and Co., 1958; The Puritan Family, Edmund S. Morgan, Harper and Row, 1966; Wood’s New England’s Prospect, William Wood, Boston: John Wilson and Son, 1865

  Sinnie:

  Shetland Life Under Earl Patrick, Gordon Donaldson, Oliver and Boyd, 1958

  Quakers:

  A Call from Death to Life, Marmaduke Stephenson, 1659; Narrative of the Martyrdom, At Boston: Of William Robinson, Marmaduke Stevenson (sic), Mary Dyer, and William Leddra, in the Year 1659, taken from Besse’s account, 1841, reprint Kessinger Publishing; New England Judged, by the Spirit of the Lord, George Bishop, General Books, original pub. date 1703; Quakers and Baptists in Colonial Massachusetts, Carla Gardina Pestana, Cambridge University Press, 1991; The Beginnings of Quakerism, William C. Braithwaite, Macmillan and Co., 1923; The Journal of George Fox, ed. Rufus Jones, Friends United Press, 1976; The Quakers in the American Colonies, Rufus Jones, Norton Library, 1966

  Other:

  The Oxford Annotated Bible, Oxford University Press, 1977

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Thanks to Mac Griswold, Director of Archival Research, Sylvester Manor Project, for generous sharing of her own research, for answering questions, and for giving me ideas for materials and sources.

  Although Mary Dyer’s visit to Barbados did not make it into the novel, I spent fascinating time there. Thanks to author Larry Gragg (“The Quaker Community on Barbados”) for answering questions; to Pedro Welch at the University of the West Indies; and to archivists at the Barbados National Archives for pulling and photocopying files.

  Thanks to Brian Smith, archivist, Shetland Museum Archives; to Liz Francis, Library Assistant, Massachusetts Historical Society; and to Christopher Densmore, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College.

  Most of my questions about this period were answered by historians who have spent lifetimes making sense of the past’s leavings. I am grateful to the authors of the many books and on-line materials I used, too many to list here.

  Huge thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts; a Creative Writing Grant from its Professional Writers Program facilitated the writing of this novel. Thanks to ArtsNB for a generous travel grant. And thanks to the Banff Centre for the Arts and the Leighton Artist’s Colony—the first draft of this novel was completed in the Cardinal Studio.

  Heartfelt thanks to all those readers who wrote to me during the years I was researching and creating this novel, telling me they were eagerly awaiting my next book. Their faith and enthusiasm kept me going.

  Thanks to Ann Patty for her perceptive reading and keen editorial eye.

  Thanks to all those at Knopf Canada who worked on A Measure of Light: Anne Collins, Marion Garner, Deirdre Molina, Nicola Makoway, Lindsey Reeder, Leah Springate and Five Seventeen.

  Thanks to copy editor Angelika Glover and proofreader Doris Cowan for their careful work.

  To my most wonderful agent, Jackie Kaiser, thanks for believing in the story from the beginning, for insightful critiques, for endless encouragement, for friendship, advice and tireless advocacy.

  To my editor, Craig Pyette, who paid meticulous attention to the smallest detail as well as the largest concept and understood the book in all its facets. Deepest thanks and gratitude for making me a better writer and for being the best possible companion on this voyage.

  My most profound gratitude goes to Johan Winsser, whom I discovered online at the very beginning of this project. I found a man with a passion for Mary Dyer, who, in writing her biography, has swept the crannies of history for any gleanings about this mysterious woman. He shared his research, his sources and his insights. He answered every question with deep attention and sent me fascinating ancillary tidbits. For his gracious sharing, his generosity, his fact-checking, his dedication to the truth, and his belief in my novel, I am profoundly grateful.

  Thanks to my astonishing mother, Alison Davis, for letting me ransack her shelves for books on Quakers and Quakerism, for having the wisdom not to allow me to attend Friends Meeting until I was eight years old, and for a lifetime of love and support.

  Thanks to my beloved family: Jake and Sara, Maeve and Bridget.

  Thanks to my father, Wendell Davis, who didn’t live to see this finished, but who always asked lovingly about my work, even when he couldn’t speak.

  And to Peter, my husband and best friend. Thanks and love, always.

  BETH POWNING’S previous novels are the bestsellers The Hatbox Letters and The Sea Captain’s Wife. Her works of memoir include Seeds of Another Summer: Finding the Spirit of Home in Nature, a collection of lyrical prose and photographs that celebrates the natural beauty of her New Brunswick home; Shadow Child, her story of coming to terms with the stillbirth of her first son, which was shortlisted for the Edna Staebler Award for Creative Non-Fiction; and the Globe and Mail Best Book Edge Seasons, about seasonal change within the natural world around her and in her life. She is a recipient of the New Brunswick Lieutenant-Governor’s Award for High Achievement in English-Language Literary Arts. Beth Powning lives near Sussex, New Brunswick, with her husband, the sculptor Peter Powning.