Rachel COPE and Zachary McLEOD HUTCHINS, eds. The Writings of Elizabeth Webb: A Quaker Missionary in America, 1697-1726. University Park, Penn: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2019. Pp 226. $24.95. Pb. ISBN 0271082232. Reviewed by Daniel L. SMITH-CHRISTOPHER, Loyola Marymount University, Los Angeles, CA. 90045.

This edited work deals with the thoughts and meditations of an early Quaker woman (by “early” I simply note that the founder of Quakerism, George Fox, was born in Britain in 1624).  Of historical interest is that Webb also felt “the call” to come to colonial America, and (a small) part of this work deals with that journey.  As Cope and McLeod-Hutchins discuss in their helpful introduction, a confirming sense of calling from a friend (Mary Rogers) demonstrates a “corporate sense of self” among female Friends of the era.   That early Friends often sought affirmation from other Friends, however, was rather typical of the movement, and Cope and McLeod-Hutchins may be reaching a bit to make such a point about “corporate” self identities among early Friends.  Nevertheless, Webb’s writing is a reasonable example of early British Friends habit of what might be called ‘self-examination’ as well as their sense of calling.  A passage about her sense of this calling, and the style of her writing, is instructive:

…as I was sitting in a meeting in Gloucester, which was then the place of my abode, my mind was gathered into perfect stillness for some time, and my spirit was as if it had been carried away into America, and after it returned, my heart was as if it had been dissolved with the love of God, and it flowed over the great ocean, and I was constrained to kneel down and pray for the seed of God in American, and the concern never went out of my mind day nor night, until I went to travel there in the love of God…(44).

This is rather standard fare in Quaker autobiographical writings, and the attraction here is the connection with early American colonial travel.  Sadly, however, this does not occupy a great deal of Webb’s attention in this work. Readers interested in the Continental mystic, Boehm, however, may find the brief correspondence also of interest.  Included in this work are the following sections:
-        A Letter from Elizabeth Webb to Anthony William Boehm, with His Answer (27-43)
-        Some Meditations with some Observations upon the Revelations of Jesus Christ (49-175)
-       A Short Account of My Voyage into America with Mary Rogers, My Companion (179-194)
-        Short Memorial
-        Letter to Her Children, August 24, 1724.

This work is ended with “Suggestions for Further Reading” and an Index.
 Readers interested in a deeply Protestant, indeed even Puritan-influenced, form of spirituality that involves serious self-examination and comment on one’s spiritual experiences (as illustrated by the passage above) will certainly find this work interesting.  I confess that I read this work as a Biblical scholar particularly interested in a historically contextual observation on Scripture.  Having said that, Biblical scholars interested in “History of Interpretation”, and thus hoping to find a unique approach to the interpretation of the Book of Revelation (which is the lion’s share of this published work) will be, I fear, somewhat disappointed at the rather generic, brief, and general observations made about the famous New Testament book, as Webb’s historical and geographical  (and indeed, gendered) context for her observations play only the most  occasional roll in the observations themselves.