Edward Taylor, American Puritan poet and minister of the Congregational church at Westfield, Massachusetts, for over fifty years, is now considered the most important poet to appear in America in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. His fame is the result of two works, the Preparatory Meditations ... (written 1682-1725) and Gods Determinations touching his Elect ... (written 1682"), but he also wrote many other poems during his long life, and he was an indefatigable preacher. Over sixty of his sermons are extant as well as a long treatise, The Harmony of the Gospels. With the exception of two stanzas of verse, his works were unpublished in his lifetime. It remained for the twentieth century to discover his worth.

The year and place of Taylor's birth have not been established with certainty, but the most convincing evidence indicates that he was born in 1642 in the hamlet of Sketchley, Leicestershire, England. His mother...