Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings

Susanna Wesley: The Complete Writings. Edited by Charles Wallace, Jr. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. xvi + 504 pp. $65.00 (cloth).

Although few eighteenth-century Anglican women are as readily recognized by name as Susanna Wesley, this is the first edition of her complete works. Most of the documents are well-known, though sometimes only in versions expurgated by John Wesley or by Victorian Methodist editors. The volume also includes more recent discoveries.

There can be no doubt that Susanna Wesley's theology and devotional practices deeply influenced her two famous sons, and through them, the Methodist movement. But the editor justly pleads that we should use these documents as sources for understanding Susanna Wesley herself, and not only her sons. Moreover, there is fascinating material for social history here, particularly for the study of devotion and gender roles in an eighteenth-century Church of England rectory.

Wallace has done his editing carefully, verifying the texts, dating the documents, explaining allusions, and seeking (often unsuccessfully) the sources of unattributed quotations. He has modernized the text for the convenience of "the interested general reader," then has added reams of footnotes to report what he has done.

The editing is not unintrusive, for Wallace likes to tell the reader how to interpret the text. For instance, for each of the 255 sections of Wesley's journals he has assigned a title, which in many cases reflects his own interests more than his subject's. Sometimes lie tells us which parts of the text should be read most carefully (e.g., p. 117, p. 252). lie -alerts us when Wesley's theology might be considered "naive" (P. 270), or when it might be suffering from what he calls "Anglican preoccupation with liturgy" (p. 268).

As a general agenda, the editor wants us to see Susanna Wesley as a kind of proto-feminist, "attempting to define herself over against the established powers" (p. 199). Modern gender theory frequently provides him with his interpretive lens. Her flourishes of self-deprecation, not rare in eighteenthcentury rhetoric, he sees as examples of feminine self-suppression in a maledominated culture (e.g., p. 426). His reading of a letter of 1727 is similarly motivated. Here, after John Wesley has not been chosen to be his father's curate, his mother writes him with relief that he will not be a permanent fixture at home: "'Tis best for me to have as few attachments to the world as possible." Those who have ever been obliged to look after a live-in 23-year-old son may well sympathize. But Wallace seems to think that the mother is 11 putting guilt" on John for spending too little time for her, and "it is not unusual for women in patriarchal situations to use indirect, manipulative approaches to gain desired ends" (p. 131). The reader of Susanna Wesley's works will find it hard to imagine that this was a woman who found it difficult to speak to a point directly.

This collection of Susanna Wesley's works will certainly be a great resource for generations to come, but the accompanying commentary is likely to age more quickly.

ALAN L. HAYES

Wycliffe College

Toronto School of Theology

Toronto, Ontario

Copyright Anglican Theological Review, Inc. Winter 2000
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