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The Life of Joseph Barker, Written by Himself
1880 · 360 pages
The Life of Joseph Barker, Written by Himself
by Joseph Barker
The fuller, posthumously edited autobiography of Joseph Barker — the preacher who became a leading secularist lecturer before returning to Christianity — telling the same eventful life in far greater biographical detail. Edited by John Thomas Barker, it is the companion volume to his Modern Skepticism.
The changed life
The complete life story of a Methodist preacher who became one of his era's most active secularist lecturers and then returned to the Christian faith he had opposed.
Summary
The Life of Joseph Barker, Written by Himself (1880) is Barker's fuller autobiography, prepared for publication after his death by John Thomas Barker. Where his Modern Skepticism concentrates on the arc of doubt and return, this volume tells the whole life in greater biographical detail — upbringing, trades, ministry, editorship, controversy, and travels.
Barker's life spanned an extraordinary range of positions. He began in Methodism, passed through successive religious and political movements, became a prominent secularist editor and lecturer working with well-known freethinkers in Britain and America, and finally returned to Christianity. The autobiography follows that course at length, giving the events and circumstances behind the shifts that his shorter book treats more thematically.
For readers who want the complete portrait rather than the argument alone, this is the companion volume to Modern Skepticism: the same remarkable life, set out in full by the man who lived it and rounded out by his editor.
Who was Joseph Barker?
Joseph Barker (1806–1875) was an English preacher, editor, and lecturer whose career moved through Methodism, the secularist and freethought movements, and a return to Christianity. He edited freethinking journals, lectured on both sides of the Atlantic, and was a well-known public figure in the religious controversies of his day.
This autobiography, written by himself and edited after his death by John Thomas Barker, is the fullest firsthand record of that life. It stands alongside Modern Skepticism as the more detailed of his two chief autobiographical works.
Common questions
- How does this differ from Barker's Modern Skepticism?
- Modern Skepticism focuses thematically on his journey into unbelief and back; The Life of Joseph Barker is the fuller autobiography, telling the same life in much greater biographical detail. The two are companion volumes.
- Who edited The Life of Joseph Barker?
- It was written by Barker himself and prepared for publication after his death by John Thomas Barker, appearing in 1880.
A note on the text. The Life of Joseph Barker, Written by Himselfis in the public domain. What you're buying is our edition — the careful typesetting and design. The original text is also available free here.