George Woodward

This collection of letters from a fairly ordinary parson in mid-18th century southern England to his uncle is moderately interesting. It deals chiefly with his travels, family and so on at a middling level of society, and only to a small extent with daily parish life – though we do get occasional glimpses of that. The parson reveals himself as a humane and understanding man, with a wry sense of humnour - though an ambitious one in terms of seeking more lucrative posts in the church. He remains mostly unpromoted.
Some complaints about the editing – even if the Reverend Woodward was a stranger to paragraphs in his letters, it would surely have been possible to insert some in the printed version. This lack, together with the use of a smallish font, makes this relatively short book unnecessarily tiring to read.
Second, the footnotes are very skimpy. There are many occurrences of words and terms which those less familiar with the 18th century might not understand. On the other hand, where footnotes do occur they are peculiar, with the numbering starting afresh for each letter rather than each page, so you can have two footnotes numbered (1) at the bottom of a page.… (mais)