Susanna: Mother of the Wesleys

By Rebecca Lamar Harmon

Book Overview

Revised

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0687407672
• ISBN13: 9780687407675
• Release Date: October 1991
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Length: 175 Pages
• Weight: 0.21 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 4.2" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Sheds light on 18th century English family customs.

Susanna Wesley(1669-1742) was beautiful and indomitable. Samuel, her husband, an Anglican divine, was scholarly and, at times, impractical. Together they had nineteen children, only nine of whom survived to adulthood. Best known were the boys: Samuel, Jr., Charles, and, of course, the founder of Methodism, John. Virtually unknown were the girls: Emilia, Susanna, Mary, Mehetabel, Martha, and Kezziah. Altogether they formed one of the most remarkable families of the eighteenth century. Rebecca Harmon does a creditable job telling the story of the family as well as describing Susanna Wesley's influence. From the day she and her husband moved into the Epworth parsonage until her death, Susanna is portrayed as a woman of uncommon spiritual, intellectual, and physical strength, albeit within what must have been for her the sometimes confining social constraints of 18th century England. Read about Susanna's novel approach to home schooling, and how she and Samuel provided for the family on a country parson's penurious income. Read, too, of the differences between Samuel and Susanna concerning the raising of their daughters. In short, Susanna: Mother of the Wesleys is a splendid book deserving to be read as much for the light it sheds on 18th century family customs as for its contribution to Methodist history.