Easton Press: COTTON MATHER: BOSTON CONGREGATIONIST MINISTER: SCIENTIST

Description: Easton Press leather edition of Kenneth Silverman's "The Life and Times of Cotton Mather," a COLLECTOR'S edition, one of the LIBRARY OF AMERICAN HISTORY series, Illustrated with Period Photographs, published in 1984. Bound in navy blue leather, the book has decorative paper end leaves, acid-free paper, satin book marker, hubbed spine, gold gilt on three edges---in near FINE condition---except for a 'blank' attached bookplate on inside fly leaf. Cotton Mather, who lived from 1663--1728, was a New England Puritan clergyman and writer. A child prodigy, Mather entered Harvard at age 11 1/2, the youngest student ever to enroll, then or since. He could write in seven languages and did so prolifically. Mather was a tireless and compassionate minister of the Congregational Old North Meeting House of Boston, whose congregation numbered over 1,500 people, the largest in New England. After 1702, Cotton Mather clashed with Joseph Dudley, the governor of the Province of Massachusetts Bay, whom Mather attempted unsuccessfully to drive out of power. Mather championed the new YALE COLLEGE as an intellectual bulwark of Puritanism in New England. He corresponded extensively with European intellectuals and received an honorary Doctor of Divinity degree from the University of Glasgow in 1710. A promoter of the new experimental science in America, Cotton Mather carried out original research on plant hybridization and on the use of inoculation as a means of preventing smallpox contagion. He dispatched many reports on scientific matters to the Royal Society of London, which elected him as a fellow in 1713. Mather's promotion of inoculation against smallpox, caused violent controversy in Boston during the outbreak of 1721. Cotton Mather was born into one of the most influential and intellectually distinguished families in colonial New England and seemed destined to follow his father and grandfathers into the Puritan clergy. Cotton received his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1678, followed by a Master of Arts degree in 1681. After completing his education, Cotton joined his father's church as assistant pastor. In 1685, Cotton was ordained and assumed full responsibilities as co-pastor of the church. Father and son continued to share responsibility for the care of the congregation until the death of Increase in 1723. Despite Cotton's efforts, he never became quite as influential as his father. A highly sexed man, before his marrirage, Mather confessed to his diary and begged God to forgive him for his "lusty masturbation." Cotton Mather married Abigail Phillips, on May 4, 1686, when Cotton was twenty-three and Abigail was not quite sixteen years old. They had nine children. Cotton prayed and confessed to his diary that he was obsessed with sexual intercourse---and not just for procreation-- and this troubled him. Abigail, the couple's newborn twins, and a two-year-old daughter all succumbed to a measles epidemic in 1702. He married widow Elizabeth Hubbard in 1703. Like his first marriage, he was happily married to a very religious and emotionally stable woman. They had six children. Elizabeth died in their tenth year of marriage. On July 5, 1715, Mather married widow Lydia Lee George. Mather filled his diaries for the next eighteen months with the superlative praises for the "best woman in the American world," "the greatest of all my Temporal Blessing," obviously at last he had found a mate whose "lusty nature" matched his. Cotton and Lydia did not have any children. Mather preached his last sermon on December 24, 1727, and died on February 19, 1728. He was buried on Copp's Hill, the cemetery of Old North Church. 479 pages, including an index. I offer combined shipping.

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