Mercy Otis Warren

Therese Boos Dykeman (Norwalk Community College)

Ed. by Nick Selby, University of East Anglia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.2.1: American (US) Writing and Culture: The Colonial Period, 1604-1783.
Vol. editors: Emory Elliott (University of California, Riverside), Stephen E. Meats (Pittsburg State University), Scott Slawinski (Western Michigan University)

Dates

Born 14 Sep 1728
Died 19 Oct 1814
Activity 1748-1814

Places

Born in United States
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Playwright / Dramatist
Poet
Political writer
Satirist

Other

Historian / Chronicler
Politician

Resources

Warren's Works

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An American revolutionist, political philosopher, historian, poet, playwright and founding mother of the United States of America, Mercy Otis Warren was one of the most important insurers of the success of the American democratic experiment. Her legacy resides in her force of insight in challenging both the excesses of British rule and the incompleteness of the Constitution as it was first written. Her greatest hope was that freedom would encourage virtue; her greatest fear was that leaders would become removed from the people, and that both would become enslaved by greed. Her stature, genius, and intellectual energy is reflected particularly in two of her writings,

History of the Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution

and

Observations on the New Constitution.

Born 25

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2644 words

Citation: Dykeman, Therese Boos. "Mercy Otis Warren". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 14 March 2011 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=4611, accessed 23 November 2024.]

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