Though excluded from most colonial literary histories, the Algonquin peoples produced a variety of texts in the seventeenth to the early nineteenth centuries, including letters, journals, pictographs, wills, petitions and even baskets. Using texts produced by the Mohegans, the Narragansetts, Natick, the Pequots, and the Wampanoags, the contributors of the accompanying essays explain the continuity of expression from pre-contact days through contemporary encounters with English. Perhaps with judicious searching we will at last uncover poetry or extended works of fiction, but this collection of primary texts accompanied by essays will serve to explain what we know about early Native American literature in English. Annotation ©2009 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)