Though American women of the eighteenth century had few opportunities to publish their writings, many kept diaries or composed letters that their contemporaries viewed as valuable and instructive. Such was the case with Susanna Anthony, who--according to her editor, Samuel Hopkins--wrote a thousand pages of diary entries and maintained a copious correspondence. These writings record Anthony's spiritual life after her conversion during the major religious revival known as the Great Awakening. Her writings reveal an individual mind at work: Anthony's careful thought regarding doctrinal matters, her emotional and psychological distress at crucial periods of her life, and her accomplished prose convey a portrait of a woman who took advantage of her place in society to develop an independent and individual mind.

Little is known about Susanna Anthony's life except what Hopkins wrote in the introduction to The Life and Character of Miss Susanna Anthony (1796). Born in Newport, Rhode...