The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania

Peter Markoe's The Algerine Spy in Pennsylvania is an important early American satire, reprinted in the edition I read with a useful introduction by Timothy Marr. It provides an "outsider's" perspective on the America of 1787, though a false one since the author was a white writer, even if a particularly cosmopolitan one for his time. The text is a snapshot of a key moment in American history, published during the Constitutional Convention but before the details of the new governmental blueprint were revealed.