Richard Baxter's Correspondence
The Correspondence:
Richard Baxter’s correspondence is one of the most significant collections of letters in seventeenth-century
Britain. There are approximately 1300 letters, written between 1638 and 1691, revealing the range both
of Baxter’s network and of the contribution he made to the intellectual and religious life of seventeenth-
century Britain, Europe and North America. His correspondents included prominent figures of conformity
and nonconformity such as the (future) archbishops, John Tillotson and Thomas Tenison, and the leading
Congregationalist, John Owen; influential men of science and philosophers, such as Robert Boyle, Henry
More and Joseph Glanvill; international ecumenicists and intellectuals, such as John Dury and Amyraldus;
and key political figures ranging from the royalist Earl of Lauderdale to the future Cromwellian Major-
General James Berry.
Baxter also cultivated a network of correspondents centred on the sharing of pastoral or spiritual advice
and encouragement. This largely resulted from his extensive print publications and, to a lesser extent,
his parochial ministry, and continued throughout the Civil War, Interregnum, and the Restoration. It
included individuals from all levels of society – London apprentices, Cambridge students, missionaries
and devout gentlewomen. He also wrote to community groups, including churches and associations across
the ecclesiastical spectrum. The Baxter correspondence archive at Dr Williams’s Library is an invaluable
resource for multiple fields of scholarship of the early modern period, and testifies to Baxter’s arguably
unrivalled social, political, religious and intellectual connections. These letters, made available in their
complete form for the first time, will help to cement his position as an influential, well-connected and
prolific letter writer.
The Edition:
This project will produce a comprehensive critical edition of Baxter’s correspondence in nine volumes.
It will build on the detailed scholarly foundation provided by N. H. Keeble and Geoffrey F. Nuttall’s
Calendar of the Correspondence of Richard Baxter, 2 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991). It will edit and
publish the full text of every surviving letter within the corpus, including the manuscript letters held in Dr
Williams’s Library and in county record offices, and the prefatory epistles to Baxter’s printed works. It will
also provide extensive annotation and additional material description of the manuscripts, complementing the
Reliquiae Baxterianae project (currently underway).
Editors:
The editorial team is led by Dr Johanna Harris (University of Exeter) and Dr Alison Searle (Anglia Ruskin
University). Contributing editors include Dr Sarah Apetrei (Keble College, University of Oxford), Dr Sylvia
Brown (University of Alberta), Dr Keith Condie (Moore Theological College), Professor James Daybell
(University of Plymouth), Dr Carrie Hintz (Queens College/CUNY and The Graduate Center/CUNY) and
Dr Jason McElligott (Trinity College, Dublin).
The project also benefits from the advice and expertise of its editorial board: Professor John Coffey
(University of Leicester), Professor Anne Dunan-Page (Université de Provence, Aix-Marseille I, Institut
Universitaire de France), Professor Emeritus Neil Keeble (University of Stirling), Professor Isabel Rivers
(Queen Mary, University of London), Professor Helen Wilcox (University of Bangor), and Dr David Wykes
(Dr Williams’s Library).
