Memoir of Jemima Wilkinson, a Preacheress of the Eighteenth Century; containing an authetic narrative of her life and character, and of the rise, progress, and conclusion of her ministry by [WOMEN'S HISTORY & LITERATURE - RELIGION] [WILKINSON, Jemima] HUDSON, David - 1844

Bath, NY: R. L. Underwood & Co, 1844. [Second Edition]. 18mo (15.5cm.); publisher's full sheep, red gilt morocco spine label; viii,[9]-288pp.; portrait frontispiece. Boards rather worn and joints cracked but holding, old dampstain to rear cover very slightly bleeding into textblock, some soil to early leaves, else a Good or better copy overall. Account of the life of Jemima Wilkinson (1752-1819), the Rhode Island-born Quaker and Evangelist who claimed after a long illness to have died and been risen from the dead. Through her preaching she became known as the "Universal Friend," creating a Shaker-like sect that practiced celibacy and poverty on a massive property she named "Jerusalem." Some have argued that Wilkinson was an imposter who accrued vast wealth from her followers (Howes describes her as "the first religious charlatan of her sex in America"). Indeed, the sect would not survive after her death. This work, first published in 1821, attributed to David Hudson (SABIN 33485 and HOWES H-761). See also "Appleton's Cyclopaedia of American Biography," Vol. 6, p. 512.