SOURCE: "The Mathers," in Spiritual Autobiography in Early America, The University of Wisconsin Press, 1988, pp. 152-63.

In the following excerpt, Shea examines the narrative style and some key terminology of Mather's autobiography.

Except for the Adamses, who came later, no American family rivaled the Mathers in an hereditary inclination toward biography and autobiography. The biography of the first American Mather, Richard (1596-1669), was written by his son Increase, who told his readers that although he would remain anonymous he wrote with the authority of one closely acquainted with his subject and aided by his subject's manuscripts, including an autobiography to age thirty-nine.¹ Shortly after he completed the monument to his father's life, Increase Mather (1639-1723) began the record of his own. His surviving diaries date from the early 1670's, and in 1685 he concluded the first portion of an autobiographical manuscript that continued to receive additions until eight years...