Journal of William Penn

In 1677, four years before he secured the charter for Pennsylvania, William Penn crossed to Holland and Germany to visit Quaker congregations and preach religious toleration. His daily entries record the meetings he held and the people he met, Friends and those of other faiths alike, along with the persecution he met on the road.

Between the diary entries sit the letters, addresses and epistles he wrote as he travelled, setting out his religious thinking, alongside notes on his own spiritual awakening and the religious climate of Europe at the time. The result is a close view of Penn as a young member of the Religious Society of Friends, working beside its founder George Fox, well before the colony that bears his name. A rewarding source for anyone drawn to early Quaker history or the roots of religious freedom.