Women`s Speaking Justified and Other Pamphlets

This wonderful, eye-opening volume enables Margaret Fell finally to take her rightful place, center stage, as one of the founders of the Society of Friends (or Quakers). Tireless and fearless, she spoke her truth to Friends and to their opponents — including the king — for many decades, enduring periods of harsh imprisonment as a result. This selection of her writings, comprising many genres, reveals her to have been an adept and assured rhetorician, by turns admonitory and exultant, measured and mystical, prophetic and practical. The editors’ judicious and meticulous scholarship opens fascinating perspectives onto Fell’s life and work for scholars and students alike.--Hilary Hinds, Professor of Literary Culture, Lancaster University

• Illustrations xvAbbreviations xviiAcknowledgments xixIntroduction 1A Relation of Margaret Fell, Her Birth, Life, Testimony, and Sufferings 55To All the Professors of the World 69A Testimony of the Touchstone for All Professions 85A Loving Salutation to the Seed of Abraham among the Jews 103The Examination of Margaret Fell 137A Letter Sent to the King 151Women’s Speaking Justified, Proved, and Allowed of by the Scriptures 157The Daughter of Zion Awakened 177Bibliography 199Index 213