In nearly a half-century of missionary work throughout England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, brothers John and Charles Wesley found the southwestern county of Cornwall to be among their most serious theological and social challenges. Eighteenth-century Cornwall lacked population centers, and small towns and villages were isolated by inadequate roads. The adult population consisted mainly of miners, fisherman and smugglers--men more interested in the bulk of their pocketbooks than in the status of their souls. And the clergy of the Church of England overwhelmingly opposed the Wesleys and their itinerant preachers, encouraging Anglicans to disrupt the Wesleys' outdoor services and to attack and burn Methodist preaching houses. Although the Wesleys made some evangelical progress in Cornwall, the question remained upon John Wesley's death in 1791: did the mission to Cornwall succeed or fail? This book considers the mission with a close reading of the Wesleys writings, and covers the overall history of 18th-century British Methodism and its contribution to the religious and social history of the British Empire.

This book examines how the growth of tourism in locations that have historically been considered geographically remote plays a major role in the consolidation and transformation of often longstanding and powerful cultural imaginaries about ‘the edges of the world’. The contributors examine the attraction of the sublime, remoteness, continental border-points, and the dangers of the sea in Finisterre (or Fisterra) in Galicia (Spain); Finistère in Brittany (France); Land’s End, Cornwall (England); Lough Derg (Ireland); Nordkapp or North Cape (Norway); Cape Spear, Newfoundland (Canada); and Tierra del Fuego (Argentina). While those travelling to these locations can be seen to be conducting some form of religious or secular pilgrimage, those who live in them have long contended with the implications of economic and political marginalization within global political economies.

Includes the Reports of the Institution, which, prior to the establishment of the Journal, were issued separately.

This thorough compilation should stand as the definitive source on the Wesleys for years to come. --ARBA