Caught a lecture tonight from Mayflower author, Nathaniel Philbrick at the Carter Center in the hopes of not needing to buy the book but frankly I was enthralled. The period from 1620 to 1675 was almost idyllic, sure plenty of intrigue but not much civ-threatening violence. Then all hell breaks loose with King Philip's War. The losses were stupendous! Of 70,000 total people in New England they lose a higher percentage than were lost in the American Civil War. The English settlers were more than "decimated", most villages burnt, and survived by the luck of Benjamin Church who had been living happily with the Indians in today's Rhode Island. Fascinating stuff and like Philbrick said, I didn't know much between "The First Thanksgiving" and 1776. So, anyways, I guess I'll have to get the book!
I've had this set of Shakespeare volumes since the late 1980's. Super-portable at 7" by 4.5" with nice, readable font size. Well footnoted for vocabulary and extensive note apparatus at the end of each volume. I'm surprised there's not much more on this set than various auctions and used book listings — looks like they still fetch $80 for all 40 books. Mine is a printing from 1954 edited by Tucker Brooke I found this review of the series from when it first came out. Very critical, but wanted to capture it, since this has been my reference edition for over 30 years
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