Edward Taylor (ca. 1642-1729), Puritan poet and minister, was one of the finest literary artists of colonial America.

Born in England, highly educated, and living a rather isolated frontier life at Westfield, Mass., Edward Taylor appears to have been outside the major developments in Puritan New England. His theology resembled that of his orthodox Boston contemporaries Michael Wigglesworth, Increase and Cotton Mather, and his lifelong friend Samuel Sewall, more than that of Solomon Stoddard, minister at nearby Northampton, whose liberal views on church membership Taylor strongly disapproved. He disliked James II and his colonial appointment Governor Andros, and he was heartened by the Revolution of 1688. As a strict Congregationalist, Taylor opposed the Plan of Union between Congregational and Presbyterian churches. His poetry recalls the somewhat older, baroque English tradition of George Herbert and Richard Crashaw.

Little is known about Taylor's early life. The date and exact place of...