Jane Goodwin Austin deserves much of the credit for mythologizing America's Pilgrim forebears. She wrote twenty-four books, including children's books and adult sensation novels, but her reputation rests on her five novels that treat colonial life in Plymouth. The history of Plymouth Colony was a natural subject for Austin. She was a descendent of at least eight Mayflower Pilgrims--including Myles Standish and William Bradford--through both her mother and her father. She also claimed other ancestors who were notable in Plymouth history, such as Francis and Lazarus LeBaron. She used this family lore in her best fiction.

The author known as Jane Goodwin Austin was born as Mary Jane Goodwin on 25 February 1831 (some sources incorrectly state January) in Worcester, Massachusetts, to Isaac Goodwin and Elizabeth Hammatt Goodwin. Her writing shows the influence of both her parents. A lawyer and a scholar, her father was also a respected antiquarian and...