Ann Bell is insightfully accurate in her portrayals of 1700s England and the New World. You feel like you are doing the living in the middle of the many deadly dangers and unexpected opportunities awaiting around the next corner. Just when things appear hopeless, a way through opens. Just when things appear to be going great, the bottom drops out. These developments are revealed in ways that all of us find familiar and believable. Her characters truly live for us and we care about them. The times they live in are analyzed with a simplicity and genuineness which is impressive to read. She gets the tensions right between the Quakers and non-Quakers (including Ben Franklin), and between the Quakers and Quakers. The people ebb-and-flow in their moral development and wisdom. Issues of romantic competitiveness, finding your way in a profession, combating severe depressions, treatment of minorities, using political influence, and child-rearing are raised in thought-provoking ways. Ann Bell accurately depicts the Quaker society and its challenges in a manner which sheds light on the similar challenges which continue to beset Quakers of our modern times. Those Quakers sowed the seeds which bless and bewilder us today. What a great way to live history and ponder social interactions which are ever present. The Quakers of colonial England and the new world had a major influence on how the Western world developed, and Bell has effectively introduced us to it. There is much more to reveal, and it is to be hoped she will continue in telling us more about the Quaker influences and quandaries, and making them come alive.
Del Coppinger, William Penn University, Oskaloosa, Iowa.