Kathryn N. Gray is a lecturer in English Literature at Plymouth University.

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations Introduction One: Private petitions and transatlantic discursive communities Two: Dedicated dignitaries and ‘The Christian Reader’: reading the mission in EnglandThree: Speech, Space and Religious (Re-)Affirmation Four: Christian Indian Women in Seventeenth-Century New England Five: A Reading Community: Praying Indians and the Written Word BibliographyIndex About the Author

In Connecting Communities in Seventeenth-Century New England, Kathryn Gray offers a fresh look at the cultural significance of John Eliot’s mission. Arguing that Eliot was the hub of a transatlantic discourse melding millennial politics and shrewd promotion, Gray traces the many 'reception communities' in which Eliot was involved. Her use of a range of texts, from private correspondence, to missionary tracts, to the marginalia of Algonquian Bible readers provides a complex portrait of Eliot’s influence. Yet Gray renders with equal clarity the portraits of Eliot’s converts, allowing us to glimpse how Natives sought power and influence by merging Christian attitudes with their own. This is a challenging, lucidly argued study indispensable to an understanding of Eliot and his era.

Kathryn N. Gray is a lecturer in English Literature at Plymouth University.

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations Introduction One: Private petitions and transatlantic discursive communities Two: Dedicated dignitaries and ‘The Christian Reader’: reading the mission in EnglandThree: Speech, Space and Religious (Re-)Affirmation Four: Christian Indian Women in Seventeenth-Century New England Five: A Reading Community: Praying Indians and the Written Word BibliographyIndex About the Author

In Connecting Communities in Seventeenth-Century New England, Kathryn Gray offers a fresh look at the cultural significance of John Eliot’s mission. Arguing that Eliot was the hub of a transatlantic discourse melding millennial politics and shrewd promotion, Gray traces the many 'reception communities' in which Eliot was involved. Her use of a range of texts, from private correspondence, to missionary tracts, to the marginalia of Algonquian Bible readers provides a complex portrait of Eliot’s influence. Yet Gray renders with equal clarity the portraits of Eliot’s converts, allowing us to glimpse how Natives sought power and influence by merging Christian attitudes with their own. This is a challenging, lucidly argued study indispensable to an understanding of Eliot and his era.

Kathryn N. Gray is a lecturer in English Literature at Plymouth University.

• AcknowledgmentsAbbreviations Introduction One: Private petitions and transatlantic discursive communities Two: Dedicated dignitaries and ‘The Christian Reader’: reading the mission in EnglandThree: Speech, Space and Religious (Re-)Affirmation Four: Christian Indian Women in Seventeenth-Century New England Five: A Reading Community: Praying Indians and the Written Word BibliographyIndex About the Author

In Connecting Communities in Seventeenth-Century New England, Kathryn Gray offers a fresh look at the cultural significance of John Eliot’s mission. Arguing that Eliot was the hub of a transatlantic discourse melding millennial politics and shrewd promotion, Gray traces the many 'reception communities' in which Eliot was involved. Her use of a range of texts, from private correspondence, to missionary tracts, to the marginalia of Algonquian Bible readers provides a complex portrait of Eliot’s influence. Yet Gray renders with equal clarity the portraits of Eliot’s converts, allowing us to glimpse how Natives sought power and influence by merging Christian attitudes with their own. This is a challenging, lucidly argued study indispensable to an understanding of Eliot and his era.