Ebenezer Cooke was the real-life poet who penned the eponymous satyrical ode to Maryland, and although little is known about him Barth decided to tell his story anyways. Cooke, who has little talent for anything other than learning and vocabulary, is sent from London to Maryland in 1690 to tend to his father’s tobacco plantation. What unfolds is an adventure rife with pirates, Awatchoops, gamblers, prostitutes, opium peddlers, and aspiring colonial political figures. It’s a hilarious take on the classic adventure novels of the 18th century and written in a style by Barth that both puts the reader in the time of the story without disassociating her from her own. While most of the conventions it overturns are par for the course in today’s storytelling, it is still a delight to read and to see a side of the pre-American new world that is more likely to be accurate that turkey sharing pilgrims: a land of cut-throat opportunists doing anything they can to survive. Although quite long, it still holds up and is deserving of its place in the literary cannon.