George Fox: The Journal (Penguin Classics)

From the father of Quakerism, a fascinating autobiographical account of his work, struggles, hardships, and successes

Coming from humble origins, George Fox spent years in search of spiritual enlightenment before experiencing several revelations, or “openings,” which became the basis of Quaker theology. After the formation of the Religious Society of Friends, or Quakers, in 1652, Fox and his associates suffered under brutal persecution from the English government. Fox’s Journal, initially dictated to his stepson-in-law when they were both imprisoned in the mid-1670s, combines burning rage against social injustice and a visionary sense of God “rising” through all creation with a forthright account of his own persecution and suffering. Written in a style that, in some respects, anticipates the work of James Joyce and other great modernists, it is, as Nigel Smith writes in his Introduction, not only “a classic of spiritual and autobiographical writing” but “an important literary achievement in its own right.”

For this new edition Nigel Smith has “cleaned up” a difficult text to enhance the coherence of the main narrative while retaining the immediacy and excitement of the original. Four appendices–extracts from Fox’s letters, descriptions of his travels in Ireland and America, and William Penn’s Preface to the first printed edition–supplement the main text.