New Hampshire author Robert Begiebing said rereading his debut novel after 20 years was a surreal experience. He recently revisited his locally-set book “The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin,” originally published in 1991.

“It was pretty surprising to reread it. It’s not your own head anymore you’re in, it’s somebody else’s head,” he said. “It’s almost like reading someone else’s novel.”

The University Press of New England recently published a 20th anniversary edition of “The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin,” the first in a trilogy of historical New England novels. Begiebing will discuss the book during an event at Water Street Bookstore in Exeter on Thursday, Sept. 27 at 7 p.m.

When Begiebing started working on the book in the late 1980s, he had already published three nonfiction books of criticism, including two about the work of Norman Mailer, as well as numerous literary articles. But he had never before written a novel. Then a resident of Newfields, his inspiration came while reading Charles Bell’s 1888 book “History of the Town of Exeter.” It includes a description of the town’s first murder, the unsolved killing of a woman in 1648. To this day, very little is known about what happened, largely because the victim’s husband mysteriously refused to press charges against the top suspect.

“Bell makes it very clear that the court records run out of information quite quickly,” Begiebing said. “So I went back into the old court records myself and went back into the genealogical sources and found that, indeed, this was a case of an actual early murder that just runs out of records.”   

That lack of information made a nonfiction book impractical. On the other hand, the incident served as prime material for a work of historical fiction. Begiebing conducted extensive research about what the Seacoast was like in the 1640s, studying diaries, journals, travelers’ accounts, history books, even deeds and wills outlining what was in an average person’s house. He also read 17th century literature to get a sense of the language.

His book follows an Englishman named Richard Browne as he investigates the murder, questioning the victim’s husband and the wife of the chief suspect, who has gone missing. It’s loaded with historical references to the Piscataqua Settlement, then part of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, including Strawbery Banke and the Isles of Shoals.

But most of the story is pure fiction. Begiebing had to imagine the circumstances surrounding the murder, and he changed the names of the characters.

Several of those characters are women who defy the gender roles of the time. Contrary to popular belief, he said, some women rebelled through need or necessity against society’s Puritan expectations.

“Once I got into these narratives, I realized what had caught my attention, among other things, was how women found their way in the world and broke through what was containing them, socially and culturally, here and there,” he said. “They could be rough characters, but they certainly had some strictures placed on them, legally and otherwise.”

In fact, Begiebing said, court records show that 44 percent of female offenses committed in New England in the 17th century were related to adultery or fornication, and they were often punished with public whippings—a practice cited in “Mistress Coffin.”

“You realize when you look at those court records, it’s a much wilder bunch than we think of when we think of the pilgrim scenario,” he said. “Basically, what I discovered was whether you were talking about a Puritan community or, even more likely, a community based on trade, these offenses were kind of unexpected, and they don’t go with the grade school scenarios we’re taught about.”

Another example of how the novel reflects broken gender barriers comes in Part II, which takes the form of a journal kept by the victim prior to her death. According to Begiebing, there are only five surviving journals from 17th century New England that were written by women. Apparently, it was exceptionally rare for a woman to keep a journal.

The historical roles of women—and how they defied those roles—would become a theme of Begiebing’s fiction. That theme is prevalent in the book’s two sequels, 1999’s “The Adventures of Allegra Fullerton,” about a 19th century widow, and 2003’s “Rebecca Wentworth’s Distraction,” about a young artistic prodigy in colonial New England.

Begiebing said he never set out to make women’s liberation a central theme of his work, but strong women characters kept creeping into his narratives.

“It’s turned out that way. I don’t know why. It wasn’t intentional. By the time I got into the third book in the trilogy, I realized that’s what was going on,” he said.

The author plans to focus on that topic during his presentation at Water Street, which may include a live interview in the store.

Begiebing is a professor of English emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University, and founding director of the school’s low-residency MFA in fiction and nonfiction. He has now published six books, and he’s got another one due out next year, a biographical novel about British landscape painter J. M. W. Turner.

The anniversary edition of “Mistress Coffin” is available in paperback and as an e-book. The digital option shows how much the industry has changed since the original version came out. Although he prefers reading physical books, Begiebing believes e-readers are the way of the future, and social media has helped him spread the word about his work.

“I have no problem with e-books. In fact, I think there’s a chance that the books that come out on e-books, including the next one, will be more widely dispersed,” he said. “My sense is that there are changes enough in the way people perceive that by the time we’re another generation or two down the road, it will be very few people who want to read a physical book.”

The ongoing transition to e-books, and the much-heralded shortness of attention span that has accompanied the digital revolution, may change expectations about how books are written, Begiebing said. But he noted that the development of movies in the early 20th century also altered expectations, and writers were able to adapt.

Speaking of movies, there have been several attempts to make “The Strange Death of Mistress Coffin” into a feature-length film. The process is ongoing.

“It’s optioned, and it’s the fifth time it’s been optioned. There is a screenplay that’s being shopped about,” Begiebing said.

In the 20-plus years since “Mistress Coffin” was first published, Begiebing has heard from many descendents of the real-life family at its core (the actual surname is Willix). One woman was upset about what she perceived as inaccuracies in the book, but Begiebing reminded her that the novel is fictional and was merely inspired by real events. Most of the feedback he has received, from relatives and nonrelatives alike, has been positive.

“Most were very pleasant,” he said. “They were happy to think this story they’d been hearing about since they were children had been the inspiration for a novel.”