cover image Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker

Mary Dyer: Biography of a Rebel Quaker

Ruth Talbot Plimpton. Branden Books, $21.95 (247pp) ISBN 978-0-8283-1964-5

An underlying irony surfaces in this plodding biography of the only woman in America to die for her Quaker beliefs. In 1635 Mary Dyer and her husband William emigrated to the ``new'' England. Pursuing freedom from the restrictive Puritanism of home, they found similar infringements on their faith in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. They were eventually banished and Mary, inspired by her friend, the outspoken Anne Hutchinson, became one of the group that founded Rhode Island on the premise of religious freedom for all and a modicum of women's equality. Still seeking spiritual fulfillment, she returned to England, became a follower of George Fox and, as a Quaker missionary, sailed back to the colonies. In Boston, where the general court had banished Quakers as ``a pernicious sect'' in 1658, she was hanged in 1660. Limning the evolution of an early crusader for civil rights, Plimpton ( Operation Crossroads Africa ) also describes Mary's relationships with Native Americans. Illustrations not seen by PW. (Jan.)