The literary remains of Sarah Fuller Flower Adams are small, comprising only two books, fourteen published hymns, twenty-three uncollected pieces of prose and poetry in periodical publications, and several unlocated manuscript poems on social and political subjects--poems formerly in the possession of Adams's friend and mentor, the noted Unitarian minister and social activist William Johnson Fox. Her modern reputation rests upon a single poetic text, the hymn "Nearer, My God to Thee." Yet while that hymn is familiar to many, its author remains practically unknown.

Although Adams's writings are minor productions within the broader scope of nineteenth-century literary culture, they nonetheless serve as a useful index for the examination of the interplay among varying religious, social, and political ideologies during the highly volatile early days of the British reform movement in the 1830s and 1840s. Thematically, Adams's productions most often detail working-class concerns; rhetorically, they exhibit the argumentative...