The Journal of George Fox

The Journal of George Fox, in John L. Nickalls's scholarly edition published by Cambridge University Press, is the primary autobiographical record of the founder of the Quaker movement, describing his own spiritual experiences and the early growth of the Society of Friends in his own words. Nickalls's edition is the standard scholarly text used throughout Quaker historical studies, establishing the text with editorial care from the surviving manuscript sources. As Fox's own primary account in a recognized critical edition, it is the correct authoritative source for his own description of his experience and ministry. Its limit is the ordinary one for any founder's own memoir, a first person account written and later reworked with the benefit of hindsight, so an independent historical assessment of the movement's actual early development benefits from a secondary scholarly history alongside Fox's own journal.