Letters Series (Volumes 25-31), 1721-1996 and undated

Extent:

15 boxes

Scope and content:

The seven volumes of John Wesley's letters comprised one of the two units of the Bicentennial Edition for which Frank Baker was originally slated to be unit editor. Although he completed only the first two of those volumes--Letters I: 1721-1739 and Letters II: 1740-1755 (Volumes 25 and 26, respectively)--the Letters Series contains not only those materials but many more that Baker gathered in preparation for the entire series. The series is arranged in two large subseries, General Files and Volumes. The latter is composed mainly of materials specific to the two volumes published during Baker's lifetime, including correspondence, notes, and many versions of typescripts and proofs. The General Files Subseries, however, contains materials for Baker's preparation for all seven volumes, some of which extend well past the 1755 end-date of Volume 26. Among the highlights here are the hundreds of photocopies of manuscript letters, both to and from Wesley, collected from archives around the world. Although these are in theory available from the original holding archive, where known, the fact of their being collected in single place makes this a valuable resource for studying Wesley's correspondence and correspondents. Another item of interest, entirely unique to this collection, is the notebook labeled "Early log of Wesley letters." Undated but probably from the mid-1970s to early 1980s, this notebook sheds light on Baker's research methods as well as providing a resource for studying Wesley's correspondence. It lists in chronological order, from 1725 to 1791, the date, place written, recipient, place received, prior publication if any, and present archival location of some 4000 John Wesley manuscript letters around the world. Its content extends well beyond the content presently available in either the published volumes of the Bicentennial Edition or in the previous standard for Wesley's letters, the Telford edition.

The Letters series (Vol. 25-31) showcases the meticulous work of Frank Baker, editor of the series: here is his correspondence with international libraries to obtain extant Wesley letters; research concerning Wesley's correspondents; and many layers of editing the letters. The Wesley Works Archive contains relevant photocopies, not original manuscripts, of JW's letters. The bulk of the materials relate to the two volumes of letters published during Baker's lifetime--volumes 25 and 26 of the Bicentennial Edition--which cover Wesley's letters through 1755. However, there are also some materials for volume 27 and many materials that document Baker's extensive preparation for the entire 7 volume letters unit. These last-named materials, however, actually appear first in the following arrangement, under the heading of General Planning. Following that are the materials for individual volumes of the Letters. Frank Baker was the original unit editor and saw the first two of seven volumes into publication. The unit editors for the remaining volumes were Ted Campbell and Philip Meadows.

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