Dramatis Personae

Abstract

This chapter introduces the family: father Edmund, a shoemaker turned bookseller, and his three or four wives, their social and religious status, questions of literacy and formal education. The children are introduced more or less in their birth order: Kezia, Ebenezer, Manoah, Job, and Charity. The difficulties of tracing women is discussed. Particular attention is paid to Kezia, who was the subject of one of Ebenezer’s astrological cases, and Charity, who left a decades-long trail through official records, marking her as one of the most economically savvy members of the family. Since many of the Sibly men took shorthand, there is a brief discussion of contemporary shorthand uses, accuracy, and to what extent shorthand takers preserved the voice of the speaker. Ebenezer’s daughter Urania is also introduced, though like Ebenezer and Manoah, she has her own chapter later in the work