ABSTRACT
The Private Journal by Sarah Kemble Knight provides an accurate gauge of the temper of the times. Madam Knight's unique brand of earthy humor and practical wisdom, blended with the vestiges of Puritan dogma, captivated the nineteenth-century audience who first saw its publication and continues to amuse contemporary readers. On October 20, 1704, the thirty-eight-year-old Madam Knight embarked on an unchaperoned 200-mile journey from Boston to New Haven, Connecticut, in order to settle the estate of a family member. Madam Knight blends with this helpful history a fresh wit in which she looks with amusement upon her travelling companions and the individuals whom she meets, the meals she has, and the overnight accommodations between Boston and New York. One critic properly assesses Madam Knight's makeup: 'A lady of good family in respectable society and church standing, who was much too busy with the affairs of daily life to concern her unduly with the matters of state or of religion'.
