From Kingdom to Colony

About the book

A prologue follows John and Anne Devereux from their English family setting toward a new life across the Atlantic. The main narrative then moves to Marblehead in 1774, where the consequences of British policy and the presence of troops have made ordinary local movements politically charged. Dorothy Devereux's lively independence introduces a younger generation whose friendships and attachments must develop within that tension. Mary Devereux combines ancestral romance with descriptions of the harbor town and its growing opposition to imperial authority. Family continuity gives the story a long perspective, while the immediate action asks how inherited English loyalties will survive a colonial crisis. Its historical setting supports an invented personal narrative, rather than making the characters' experiences a documentary account of the Revolution.

• Family and national belonging
• Revolutionary loyalties
• Youth amid political change

Why read it

The shift from the English prologue to 1774 Marblehead makes a political break feel like a change within a continuous family history.

English Little, Brown edition of 1904, copyright 1899, illustrated by Henry Sandham