Fletcher Page Header

The Bosanquet / Fletcher Letters Project

Go to the Listing of the Letters Below

The Bosanquet / Fletcher Letters Project aims to provide a comprehensive collection of transcripts of the printed correspondence of John Fletcher and Mary Bosanquet Fletcher, as well as transcripts of some of their correspondence which exists only in manuscript form. The project may eventually take on a more comprehensive scope, publishing here for the first time many manuscript letters otherwise unpublished, helping to extend the aims of the Fletcher Page to aid scholars in conducting primary source research on the Fletchers. In addition, this collection will include some of the correspondence received by the Fletchers, not just those letters which they sent (independently, or jointly), helping to provide a more thorough context for understanding the nature of their writings and their ministries.

Although many more of John Fletcher's letters have been published, some are still largely inaccessible apart from access to subscription-based databases or long-out-of-print books and journals (e.g. the Arminian Magazine and its successors, the Christian Miscellany and Family Visitor, etc.). And, up until recently, many of his letters, primarily those written in French to Charles Wesley, were available only in the holographs in the various repositories in Britain and America. Peter Forsaith's Unexampled Labours (London: Epworth, 2008) helped to rectify this, publishing all of Fletcher's correspondence with Charles Wesley, John Wesley, the Countess of Huntingdon, and George Whitefield, for which manuscripts are extant, although he did not re-publish or edit any of the previously published letters to these figures for which holographs have not survived.

Only a small percentage of Mary Bosanquet Fletcher's correspondence, which includes literally thousands of manuscript pages, has been published to date, and these publications are out of print, primarily to be found in the Arminian Magazine. Extracts from her manuscript correspondence, the majority of which is held at MARC and Duke, although some letters are to be found at GCAH and elsewhere, have been published in various recent monographis, offering a taste of the spirituality and theology she brought to eighteenth-century religion, but leaving the reader wanting more. (e.g., see the extracts in Phyllis Mack's Heart Religion in the British Enlightenment).

The listing below includes bibliographical information and/or finding aids, and as the transcripts are posted to the Fletcher Page, links will become 'hot', allowing browsers here to navigate directly to the letters in which they are interested. If a link is broken, or if there is a particular letter in which you are interested, please let us know using our feedback form. You will notice that the list is currently very short. We anticipate that this project will take some time, and encourage you to check back every month for updates. You can also sign up to be notified of updates automatically by joining our e-mailing list.

The Letters








Copyright © 2010 David R. Wilson. All rights reserved. Created and maintained by David R. Wilson.
Top Menu Script by Apycom jQuery Menus