When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and nonhuman characters alike. An English soldier, destined for glory, abandons the battlefields of the New World to devote himself to apples. A pair of spinster twins navigate war and famine, envy and desire. A crime reporter unearths a mass grave--only to discover that the...

The Scarlet Letter is the story of three New England settlers at odds with the puritan society in which they live. Roger Chillingworth, an ageing scholar, arrives in New England after two years separation from his wife Hester to find her on trial for adultery. For refusing to reveal her lover's identity, she is condemned to wear a letter °' sewn onto her clothes. Roger resolves to discover and destroy the man who has stolen his honour. For the next...

Once you learn the true origins of Thanksgiving, you will understand the real reason to celebrate! Thanksgiving is perhaps the most universally celebrated American holiday of the year. But where did it come from? Why was it started? Discover the true history of this uniquely American holiday, as well as who the pilgrims really were and what they really believed.

A dramatization of Nathaniel Hawthorne's novel of the same title, about an adultress in puritanical, 18th century New England.

1776. Hannah Thomas left the South to marry John, but was never quite accepted by his mother and sister. She doesn't quite fit the strict Massachusetts Puritan community, and life becomes more difficult when John is killed in one of the first battles in the war for freedom. Hannah is allowed to continue to serve as lightkeeper for the twin tower lighthouses on the lonely coastline, but it is grueling work for a woman alone. A shipwreck washes ashore...

"The Island that Disappeared tells, for the first time, the story of the passengers aboard the Mayflower's sister ship (the Seaflower) who in 1630 founded a rival Puritan colony on an isolated Caribbean island called Providence--so small it doesn't appear on most maps. Chaos ensued, and the great experiment failed. One-hundred years later the disaster repeated itself. Traveling to the island today, Tom Feiling finds a new mix of Puritans and pirates...

"Ten years after the Mayflower pilgrims arrived on rocky, unfamiliar soil, Plymouth is not the land its residents had imagined. Seemingly established on a dream of religious freedom, in reality the town is led by fervent puritans who prohibit the residents from living, trading, and worshipping as they choose. By the time an unfamiliar ship, bearing new colonists, appears on the horizon one summer morning, Anglican outsiders have had enough." --

Boston, 1662. Mary Deerfield is twenty-four-years-old. Her skin is porcelain, her eyes delft blue, and in England she might have had many suitors. But here in the New World, amid this community of saints, Mary is the second wife of Thomas Deerfield, a man as cruel as he is powerful. When Thomas, prone to drunken rage, drives a three-tined fork into the back of Mary's hand, she resolves that she must divorce him to save her life. But in a world where...

Explores the history of the Plymouth Colony. From the perilous ocean crossing to the shared bounty of the first Thanksgiving, the Pilgrim settlement of New England has become enshrined as our most sacred national myth. Yet, as author Philbrick reveals, the true story of the Pilgrims is much more than the well-known tale of piety and sacrifice; it is a 55-year epic. The Mayflower's religious refugees arrived in Plymouth Harbor during a period of crisis...