Yeah, I know I need to come up with better titles. Give me a break. I have about 10 minutes to post this.

First day in the library. Wow. There is so much stuff. It’s exciting but also a bit overwhelming. Just focusing on finding my way right now.

One of the librarians archivists bought me a cup of coffee this afternoon and talked with me about my project. He shared a great deal of advice and information that will prove useful. The collection is just amazing. One of his points is that so much Methodist history is based on nineteenth-century printed sources, including editions of eighteenth-century journals and letters, and many of the editors of those editions stripped out any references that they thought would cast early Methodism in a bad light. Looking at the manuscript originals, however, results in a very different picture.

One more thing before I’m out of time. We used to think there were no surviving sermons of female Methodist preachers of the C18, but just a few months ago, 150 sermons by Mary Fletcher were discovered in manuscript form. They will be published soon. Amazing.