Memory, Community and Textuality in Nonconformist Life-Writings, 1760-1810

This article asks why memorial writing was so important for religious Dissenters in the eighteenth century, and what the role of women was in the production of nonconformist culture, by investigating the material circumstances of production, preservation and dissemination of life-writings. It introduces the editorial and commemorative activities of Mercy Doddridge and Jane Attwater, asks how a writer's confessional identity might find its way into the structure and content of her writing and compares processes of composition for printed texts with the compilation and preservation of manuscript records.