Peculiar power : a Quaker woman preacher in eighteenth-century America /

Levenduski (American literature and American studies, Emory Univ.) focuses her attention on a single text: Remarkable Experiences, by Elizabeth Ashbridge (1713-55). First published in 1774, and reprinted in at least 13 subsequent versions, Remarkable Experiences constitutes an important 18th-century Quaker woman's spiritual autobiography, a female counterpart to the Journal of John Woolman. Ashbridge's narrative is available in Journeys in New Worlds: Early American Women's Narratives, ed. by Daniel B. Shea (1990). Levenduski lucidly outlines its context within 18th-century Quaker social history. She shows how Ashbridge, whose colorful life included elopement at age 14, indentured servitude, life on the stage, and a preaching career, adapts the conventions of the Quaker narrative to accommodate her wide-ranging experiences. American historians, specialists in women's and religious history, and scholars interested in women's autobiographies have much to learn from Peculiar Power. Upper-division undergraduate; graduate; faculty. D. Campbell Colby College