Margaret Fell

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MF was the most prolific, as well as one of the most influential, Quaker writers. She wrote letters; her single-volume collected works contained forty-five tracts, nearly all written in the 1650s and 1660s. They appeared either anonymously, or collaboratively, most frequently bearing her initials, or occasionally her name. Ranging in size from leaflets to volumes, they represent thirteen per cent of all publications by Quaker women between 1641 and 1700.
Kunze, Bonnelyn Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. Macmillan.
211, 131
Some are undated. One of MF 's printers was Mary Westwood .
Bell, Maureen. A Dictionary of Women in the London Book Trade, 1540-1730. Loughborough University of Technology.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.
She was less revolutionary in her opinions than some other Quaker women writers.

Milestones

1614

Margaret Askew (later MF ) was born at Marsh Grange near Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, an isolated farming area amidst the fells.
Kunze, Bonnelyn Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. Macmillan.
27

Later 1666

MF published with her initials her most famous work, Womens Speaking Justified . . . by the Scriptures, one of a number of works she wrote while imprisoned in Lancaster Castle.
OCLC WorldCat. http://www.oclc.org/firstsearch/content/worldcat/. Accessed 1999.

June 1698

MF composed one of the last of her writings included in her collected works: To King William (personally delivered to the king by Susan Ingram ); the others were To Edmund Waller, and An Epistle to Friends.
Fell, Margaret. A Brief Collection of Remarkable Passages. J. Sowle.
531-5

April 1700

MF composed her latest known work, An Epistle to Friends, urging the Society not to isolate themselves from society by adopting the distinctive dress with which they nevertheless proceeded to identify themselves.
Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

23 April 1702

MF died at Swarthmoor Hall, where she was buried.
Stephen, Sir Leslie, and Sidney Lee, editors. The Dictionary of National Biography. Smith, Elder.

Biography

Birth and Family

1614

Margaret Askew (later MF ) was born at Marsh Grange near Dalton-in-Furness, Lancashire, an isolated farming area amidst the fells.
Kunze, Bonnelyn Young. Margaret Fell and the Rise of Quakerism. Macmillan.
27

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