“Mayflower: of Harwich: Christopher Jones Master, Contract Voyage to Virginia in the Western World: For Virginia Company: Mr. Thomas Weston: With seventy two persons men, women and children. Sailed from the Port of Southampton on Saturday, August 5th, Anno Domini Sixteen Hundred and Twenty.”

‘The Plymouth Adventure: A Chronicle Novel of the Voyage of the Mayflower’ by Ernest Gebler (1950) is the story of the conception of America.

This volume preserves a chapter of our nation’s precious heritage which must no longer be permitted to be repressed or revised. The incredible saga involving the voyage of the Mayflower is vital history that is America’s Cinderella story.

In the early 1600s books were “… rare things to the common man” and the power to read was held by few.

No lawful church existed in England except the King’s church where the people were subject to a doctrine that the king possessed the divine right to exercise authority. Any dissent was immediately punishable by imprisonment or execution without trial. Rebels involved in unlicensed preaching or unauthorized listening to reading were burned or hanged.

Separatist reformers of the King’s and the Pope’s religion fled their homeland to Holland where their existence as refugees was supported by even the children who “slaved all day at whatsoever a hand could be put to keep bread in their mouths.” Then the truce ended and the Spaniards returned to Holland to carry on the previous war.

Not moved by material gain, but in hope of the right to govern their own souls, these remarkable families embarked on this harrowing journey. In pursuit of this opportunity to simply return “to the primitive love and truths that characterized men when they first came to be called Christians,” they persevered together through tremendous hardship.

Half of their number; however, would not survive the first year.

This is a heroic story of the faith and fortitude of a unique people who subjected themselves to a drama far beyond their comprehension and more incredible than any fiction – to become the first Americans.

I hope that you will enjoy reading and adding this treasure to your collection – and wish you all a very joyful Thanksgiving in the true spirit of the holiday.