The Puritan Literary Tradition

Johanna Harris, Associate Professor of Literature, Western Civilisation Program, Australian Catholic University, Alison Searle, Associate Professor of Textual Studies, School of English, University of Leeds

Johanna Harris is Associate Professor of Literature in the Western Civilisation Program at the Australian Catholic University. Her research and publications focus on the literature, religion, and politics of the early modern period, with particular interest in non-fictional prose, especially letters, manuscript culture, devotional writing, and puritanism. With Alison Searle, she is a general editor of The Complete Correspondence of Richard Baxter and a volume editor for The Oxford Traherne (both forthcoming with Oxford University Press). She joined the Australian Catholic University in 2023, after twelve years at the University of Exeter.

Alison Searle is Associate Professor of Textual Studies in the School of English at the University of Leeds. Her research and publications focus on epistolary culture, scholarly editing, and the relationship between literature and theology. Her most recent book is Pastoral Care through Letters in the British Atlantic (Cambridge, 2023). With Johanna Harris, she is a general editor of The Complete Correspondence of Richard Baxter (forthcoming with Oxford University Press).

Introduction: The Idea of Puritan Literature, Isabel Rivers1. Anne Bradstreet: Poet and Theorist of Empire, Sharon Achinstein2. Performing Pastoral Care Through Letters, Alison Searle3. Milton and the Performing Arts, Gordon Campbell4. The Cambridge and London Experiences of Joseph Hussey: Conversion Narratives in the Eighteenth Century, Anne Dunan-Page5. Spiritual Inwardness, Religious Antiformalism, and Puritan Polemic in Paradise Lost, David Loewenstein6. 'Holy, safe, and sweet, and durable': Richard Baxter's Writings and Puritan Friendship, Johanna Harris7. De haeretico comburendo: Marvell, Hobbes, and Heresy, Dzelzainis8. 'What need has she to think of Heaven upon her Wedding-day?': Aphra Behn, Hypocrisy, and the Puritan Tradition, Elaine Hobby9. 'For the Benefit of the Afflicted': Unsettling Comfort in Mary Rowlandson's Captivity Narrative, Laura L. Knoppers10. 'There you shall enjoy your friends again': Bunyan's Depiction of Heaven, W. R. Owens11. Richard Baxter's 'Life': Editing the Puritan Experience in the Seventeenth Century, Tom Charlton12. Richard Baxter and International Protestantism, Nigel Smith13. Women's Writing and the Puritan Tradition of Memorial, Tessa Whitehouse