This work makes considerable promises. Within the broadly defined understanding of autobiography, the study will not be confined to the introspective dimension but takes on the connectivity of cultural exchange through people, ideas, and the book trade across the Anglophone world. Examination of the ways in which texts were rendered credible discursively — and also through the material and bibliographical tools made familiar by Chartier and MacKenzie, paying attention to the paratextual elements such as fonts, title pages, and author’s names — is to be undertaken. Chapter 1 opens with denominational struggles over Augustine’s Confessions, a fascinating discussion as indicative of the religious politics of the 1620s and ’30s. This becomes less convincing when it is read as evidence of the untrustworthiness of his self-representation rather than evidence of different churches and camps within churches to claim this icon as one of their own. It moves into a pleasurable and convincing reading of traces of Augustine in Donne’s Pseudo-Martyr and Devotions although perhaps making too much of the enlarged I of the preface, the usual practice in early modern printings. Chapter 2 sets two texts against each other. Sarah Wight’s visionary experience is discussed where she is empowered by her editor, Henry Jessey; her emptying to become a channel for the divine voice; and by her visions being buttressed by scriptural authorization. This is set against Eikon Basilike, discussing the various printers and then concentrating on the paratextual issues. There is no exercise in contrast and no actual discussion of whether it constitutes an auto/biography. The piece closes with a profitless discussion of the portico of old St. Paul’s, justified by the word basilica appearing on an engraving of the nave.

Chapter 3 could be seen as the heart of this study. It takes on three collections of spiritual narratives from England, Ireland, and New England, all published in 1653. Each collection is placed in context, with full treatment primarily of the respective ministers. While this is useful and well-delivered, it allows insufficient space for a more thorough examination of the narratives themselves or for weighing them against each other. The attention then turns to contrast Jane Turner’s spiritual pathway to becoming a Baptist. She has three male buttresses in the text, à la Wight, and is read as a more processual spiritual journey. This would be more convincing if the Damescene conversion with an attained and continued assurance was the established model among the Independents or their predecessors; unfortunately, an initial encouragement, followed by a lengthy and variable discipline of attaining humble confidence is more par for the course within the godly mainstream. Furthermore, Lynch expresses surprise that Turner receives condemnation from the Quaker Edward Burrough rather than from Independents for her distrust of experience unguided by scripture; Lynch’s surprise is somewhat surprising, as this desire for such guidance is probably reflective of Turner’s time with the Quakers. The conclusion is more convincing, focusing on differing public appraisals and spiritual credibility in the 1650s and a consequent sense of epistemological distrust.

The following piece takes narratives from Bedford, Bunyan’s Grace Abounding, the self-defence of Agnes Beaumont, and, by contrast, the recidivist John Child. The reading of the former is stimulating in tracing the changes of emphasis through time, in different editions. The contrasts with Beaumont’s manuscript plea for innocence against allegations of being a loose woman are well drawn out, although it would have benefitted from taking into account that the purposes of their respective texts were very different. The work closes with Richard Baxter, reading Reliquiae Baxterianiae as both autobiography and history. Initially there is a stimulating reading of his entire published oeuvre as a changing public self before turning to the specifics of Reliquiae. This is certainly an interesting reading and a productive approach but is in danger of broadening the understanding of autobiography to such a degree as to make it meaningless.

While there have been reservations expressed, for readers of history with a literary bent or vice versa, this is a very good text to think with. As Lynch remarks in the conclusion, it has identified some lines for further inquiry. The promises were too great to be delivered in a work of this size but the reader is given a series of thought-provoking vignettes, occasionally hampered by loosely connective tissue presenting a challenge to cohesion.