Quaker Studies

Abstract

The research project on ‘Early Quakers in the North West’ recently issued a test version of the opening sections of the website in which it will publish its findings. Here the project member responsible for the website’s construction describes its structure and ethos, and explains why webpresentation is particularly well suited to this topic, as a research tool as well as a means of publication. At present the account by George Fox of his travels through ‘the 1652 country’ provides the organising narrative thread. A new electronic edition of the three versions of Fox’s Journal for 1652–53 showcases how the medium facilitates an editorial presentation and comparison of texts which is much more user-friendly than a printed book. High-resolution scans have highlighted Fox’s methods of oral composition. The supporting materials, contemporary and later, on places and routes show the extent of topographical change that has taken place. Biographies and associated contemporary texts are already shifting the focus from Fox’s programme to those of the other ‘Publishers of Truth’.