Letters Concerning the Love of God (review)

E. Derek Taylor and Melvyn New's edition of Mary Astell and John Norris' epistolary work Letters Concerning the Love of God is an addition to Ashgate's 'The Early Modern Englishwoman 1500-1750: Contemporary Editions' series. In September 1693, Mary Astell wrote to John Norris about his recently published Practical Discourses Upon Several Divine Subjects (1693). At this stage she was unknown, whereas Norris was an established author. She challenged his argument 'That GOD is not only the Principal, but the sole Object of our Love ... Because he is the only efficient Cause of our Pleasure' (pp. 69-70). According to Astell, Norris overlooks the fact that God is also the cause of our pain. Norris took her question seriously, and a year-long correspondence upon the theme of the love of God followed. By 1694, when Norris suggested that the exchange should be made public, Astell was also a published author; her proto-feminist tract A Serious Proposal to the Ladies appeared in print that year. In 1695, Astell and Norris' publishers combined to produce Letters Concerning the Love of God. Two editions followed in 1705 and 1730.

In spite of its apparent popularity, it has not been reprinted since. This is probably owing to its subject and genre. By contrast, Mary Astell's proto-feminist tracts A Serious Proposal to the Ladies, Parts I and II (1694 and 1697) and Some Reflections Upon Marriage (1700) have been reprinted in extract and full scholarly editions (most recently Patricia Springborg's editions for Broadview and Cambridge University Press). These works support the now canonical view of Mary Astell as 'the first English feminist', as Bridget Hill describes her in the title of her book on Astell. According to Taylor and New, Astell's 'feminist thought cannot properly be understood without studying her correspondence with Norris' (p. 5). There is also growing interest in John Norris, not only in generalist accounts of Early Modern philosophy, but in depth, in W. J. Mander's forthcoming Oxford University Press monograph, The Philosophy of John Norris.

Taylor and New view Astell's letters less as a critique of Norris' position – as Hill and more recently Jacqueline Broad, in her entry to the Dictionary of Literary Biography present it – and more as a supportive and civil request for clarification (pp. 23-24). They emphasise the writers' shared opposition to certain tenets of John Locke's philosophy (p. 25). Astell and Norris participated in a humanist intellectual tradition that viewed the letter as the closest form of writing to speech, and therefore ideal for sociable intellectual exchange. Accordingly, Letters Concerning the Love of God exhibits Astell and Norris in dialogue, demonstrating both the interconnections between their ideas, and how ideas issue from a sociable context. Indeed, in his prefatory address 'To the Reader', Norris presents the original publication as an exemplary dialogue for readers to emulate in 'Conversations and Letters (instead of those many empty and impertinent Formalities that usually fill and engross them) but even of our Books and more elaborate Composures' (p. 56). Here authorship is sociable rather than singular; it derives from conversation and aims to generate further conversations.

This well-presented, scholarly edition includes an introduction on background, additional notes on the letters, a useful bibliography, and some further reprinted materials by Norris and Astell to give a context for the Letters. It is a welcome addition to the scholarly reprints of Early Modern women's writing and philosophy, one that provides an impetus for the revision of twenty-first-century understandings of the work of Norris, Astell, Early Modern philosophy and intellectual and cultural history more broadly.