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Wesleyana Collection
The foundation of the Pitts Theology Library Wesleyana Collection is the Robert Thursfield Smith collection of pamphlets, manuscripts, and first editions acquired by Bishop Warren Akin Candler in 1911 and subsequently donated to Emory University. Included in this collection are letters of John Wesley, Charles Wesley, George Whitefield, and other early Methodists. The collection also contains John Wesley's manuscript diary from Georgia and Charles Wesley's poetic paraphrase of the Psalms, a portion of which is in his handwriting.
Publications of others in the Wesley family are also represented in the collection, including a first edition of Samuel Wesley's The Life of Our Blessed Lord & Saviour Jesus Christ. An Heroic Poem (1693), which contains copper plates of biblical scenes designed by W. Fairborn.
The library also has realia, including a pulpit used by John Wesley, a medicine spoon owned by Francis Asbury, and a black bonnet donated by Bishop Warren Candler, as well as many objects from Methodist commemorative events.
Controversial Literature
The strength of the Wesleyana Collection at Pitts is the quantity of materials from the prolific Wesley brothers and their associates and the collection of corresponding materials that establish the broader context of Methodism within English religious history. For example, both John Wesley and John Fletcher had an ongoing dialog in pamphlets with representatives of the religious establishment such as Sir Richard Hill and George Lavington, Bishop of Exeter. These "debates in print" can be found by using the author's name or "Methodist Church controversial literature" as search terms and then limiting the search by the dates of interest.
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| 1772 HILL:4 | 1773 WESL | |
| Sir Richard Hill's scathing critique of the Wesley's theology. |
John Wesley's Response to Hill. |
The Wesleyana Collection also includes portraits of Methodist clergy, engravings of Methodist Chapels, and sketches of important persons in the history of the denomination, digitized versions of which can be found in the Pitts Digital Image Archive.