The Complete Writings of Roger Williams, Volume 1

Book excerpt: Ten years after the U. S. Civil War, a group of men in Rhode Island made a conserted effort to rescue the widely scattered writings of Roger Williams. Few sets were printed though, and under the guidance of Perry Miller, 'The Complete Writings of Roger Williams' were brought back in 1963, but still in short numbers. The present collection now makes these volumes available to readers in their original orthography. The theme of religious liberty is dominant in these volumes, running through Williams's correspondence with John Cotton and on through his famous pair of works on 'The Bloudy Tenent of Persecution.' All of the extant shorter writings and letters of Roger Williams are included in this set, along with two significant works resulting from his engagement with Native Americans: his seminal 'Key into the Language of America and Christenings Make Not Christians.'