Sailing to the New World at the age of eighteen, Anne Bradstreet was among the first contingent of Puritan refugees to leave English shores between 1630 and 1642, in search of liberty to worship without fear of persecution from state or church. Frequently struggling with ill-health, in addition to the challenges of raising a family in the harsh conditions faced by the early settlers, she achieved unexpected fame as America's first published poet, a remarkable feat for a woman in view of the cultural prejudices of the times.

Anne's writings reveal her as a devoted wife and mother, while also expressing the strong spiritual convictions and the biblical truths that shaped America's early laws and underpinned its society. But, above all, Anne Bradstreet viewed the Christian life as a pilgrimage. Her humble dependence on God and her desire to live constantly in the light of a better world yet to come, ‘whose builder and maker is God', provide a challenge to our frequently materialistic, earthbound outlook

'Faith Cook's biography of Anne Bradstreet (1612-1672) is moving, delightful, God-glorifying, and packed with heavenly piety. In it, Bradstreet, America's first published poet, declares that she wrote not 'to show my skill, but to declare the truth, not to set forth myself, but the glory of God'. She exemplifies how a godly woman can balance standing in the limelight through poetry and politics, while raising eight children and battling illness, all the while maintaining a biblical posture of submission and humility. This stirring biography is great reading for men and women of all ages but is a particular gem for young women looking for godly mentors.'
Joel R. Beeke, President, Puritan Reformed Theological Seminary, Grand Rapids

'Faith Cook continues to prove herself one of today's foremost Christian biographers. I highly recommend it.'
Tim Challies, author of The Discipline of Spiritual Discernment - www.challies.com

Faith Cook, the daughter of OMF missionaries, was born in China and now lives in Derbyshire, England. She is the author of a number of books, including Fearless Pilgrim - the life and times of John Bunyan; Lady Jane Grey, the Nine-day Queen of England; Our Hymn-Writers and their Hymns; Seeing the Invisible; Lives Turned Upside Down and two historical novels, Under the Scaffold and Caught in the Web, all published by EP.

'English gentlewoman on her new continent:
Anne Bradstreet: Pilgrim and poet by Faith Cook

The 17th-century emigrations to Massachusetts have been reduced in most of our minds to the Mayflower and the extraordinary driving force of the religion that sent thousands of mainly English settlers to North America to "Puritanism". But there were other factors, including adventure and trade, ambition and imagination. Many ships sailed to and fro. Many men took turns to become rulers. But most women,  obeying St Paul, were subservient to their husbands. Anne Bradstreet was in love with hers, and Faith Cook's simply told biography of this educated girl from Northampton, who wrote poetry under the polite guise of "a Gentlewoman in New- England", tells us more about what was then called "The Great Migration" than many a more learned account. For one thing, it reveals the Massachusett colony's acceptance of a woman writer; for Bradstreet did not have to practise secrecy. She was not an occasional poet, but a compulsive one who reduced - or heightened - everything that happened to her to verse. Her style was accurate and, as was the custom, or proof of her culture, laced with classical quotes. But chiefly it was made to show a profound personal Christianity unknown to most of us today. Indeed, it tends to pull her verses down to our way of thinking. Yet, every now and then, inspiration lightens the load, and the reader is made to realise that she is a contemporary of George Herbert, and his Christ is her Christ, and that his illness is her illness, and that, later on, vast matters, such as the Civil War and the execution of the King, are felt as deeply in Ipswich, Mass., as they are in Ipswich, Suffolk.

Cook's particular skill is in showing in comparatively few words what it was like to be far from home and yet at home in a new way. Bradstreet and most of these settlerwives gave birth to many children and suffered all kinds of hardships and diseases. Their men were lovingly autocratic according to the Bible, but cruel to the native Americans. Women such as Mrs Bradstreet were the civilisers, to some extent. The latter's poem on her children, "I had eight birds hatched in one nest", is enchanting, a little masterpiece on motherhood.

One day, a male relation would get her work published in London without her permission - and her corrections - and make her the very first female American author. Thus she is honoured, celebrated. Cook introduces her to us as she must have been, a true writer whom neither domesticity nor "dutifulness" could prevent from putting pen to paper.

There are some well-chosen pictures and maps. Cook travels to New England in quite a new way, and with a naïvety that is not unlike that of the passengers on the Arbella, the boat that brought not only the pilgrims, but their un-compromising faith, to another continent.'
The Church Times, 27th May 2011