"There are many greater Quakers than Ellwood, but few more likeable," quips editor Rosemary Moore in her prologue. Her new edition of Thomas Ellwood's autobiography will be of interest to social and religious historians, Quakers, English literary scholars, and many others. Ellwood's story vividly recounts the early days of the Friends movement in seventeenth-century England and the persecution of its members. A student of Isaac Penington, an assistant to John Milton, and the editor of the journals of George Fox, Thomas Ellwood gives a moving account of his tumultuous life and times.

Like the other volumes in the four-volume series of which it is a part, this book breaks new ground in gathering and introducing texts relating to the origins of English and Welsh Dissent. Through contemporary writings it provides a lively insight into the life and thought of early Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Baptists, and Quakers, as well as of smaller groups no longer extant. ""An incredibly impressive anthology of nonconformist life and thought, which transcends the value of most documentary series. Here we have a cornucopia of nonconformity from which scholars, students,...