Elizabeth Fry: A Quaker Life: Selected Letters and Writings (review)

Book Reviews53 we should be grateful to the editor for her labor in making the correspondence available. Martha Paxson GrundyCleveland Heights, Ohio Elizabeth Fry: A Quaker Life: Selected Letters and Writings. Edited by Gil Skidmore. Lanham, Md.: AltaMira, 2005. viii + 238 pages. $24.95 paper, $69 cloth. Elizabeth Gurney Fry (1780-1845) has long been a "Quaker saint," internationally renowned for both her pioneering prison reforms and her pious temperament. Her appearance in 2002 on the British £5 note sparked renewed interest andprompted several biographies. Historians and others who want to meet the "real" Elizabeth Fry would do well to read Skidmore's volume. Fortunately for historians, Fry was a devoted diarist: "writing myjournal is to me expressing the feelings of my heart during the day" (7 December 1798, datedbeforeherchange to "Plainness," 46). Her survivingjournals fill 46 manuscript volumes, but Skidmore's selection of entries is drawn primarily from the two-volume printed version ofher Journal as compiled by her daughters after her death. Skidmore's book also incorporates Fry's summary ofherjournals before 1799, various letters to family and friends, and extracts from Observations on the visiting, Superintendence and Government ofFemale Prisoners (1 827), included to illustrate Fry's attitudes to both those she was trying to help and those women she encouraged to join her in her prison work. A briefchronology lists those events in the Gurney and Fry families most relevant to Elizabeth. Fry's writings are arranged chronologically, and the centrality of her faithjourney is evident throughout. Some passages are already well known; for example, the entry for 4 September 1798 includes the famous declaration "I know now what the mountain is I have to climb. I amto be a Quaker!" (42). Other entries reflect less commonly cited aspects ofher life and faith, such as her distress at the "gross superstition" ofFrench Catholics and her efforts to show them "that nothing but the pure simple truth, as revealed in Scripture, through the power ofthe Holy Spirit, could really enlighten the understanding or change the heart" (5th Month, 12th, 1839, 207-8). These primary sources are enhanced by Skidmore's introduction, essential to setting the context for the writings to follow. Like Elizabeth Fry herself, the essay is thoughtful, balanced, and sensitive in exploring issues such as "Plain" vs. "Gay" Quakerism, or disownment. More connections to 54Quaker History other contemporary issues, such as women's roles or abolitionism, would have been useful. More important, the lack ofan index reduces the research utility of the collection. Skidmore's volume is a book to dip into, savor, and revisit; it provides welcome access to an admirable woman of faith and action. Through her writings, Elizabeth Gurney Fry continues to remind us ofthe challenges, in nineteenth-century England as well as today, of not only being good but doing good. Alice Almond ShrockEarlham College Knowing the Mystery ofLife Within: Selected Writings ofIsaac Penington in Their Historical and Theological Context. Ed. by R. Melvin Keiser and Rosemary Moore. London: Quaker Books, 2005. xiv + 322 pages. Illustrations , appendix, notes, bibliography, Indexes. Paper, £18. The History of the Life of Thomas Elwood, Written by Himself. Ed. by Rosemary Moore. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Altamira, 2004. xii + 227 pages. Appendixes, notes, and bibliography. Paper, $24.95; cloth, $69. Students ofearly Quaker history and thought can be grateful for two new contributions by Rosemary Moore. Both admirably fill serious gaps in current Quaker studies literature. First, Moore has collaborated with American Friend, R. Melvin Keiser (recently retired from the Religion Department at Guilford College), on the first book-length scholarly treatment of the early Quaker Isaac Penington. Penington did not engage in a prophetic, public ministry like that ofGeorge Fox, James Nayler, Edward Burrough and other first-generation leaders. Nevertheless, his writings have long been regarded as among the most discerning and sublime in any period of Quaker literature. Only recently have the four volumes of his collected writings have been republished (by Quaker Heritage Press, 1995-97). The last edition was published 1861-63. With all the work taking place in Quaker studies today, it is surprising that Penington has been so long ignored. Perhaps the lack ofa robust, prophetic life-story, combined with the...