pp 351 reprinted 1980
ISBN 0-7083-0669-1
`The aim of this book is to overturn the long-held Methodist view of Welsh history. For the Methodists, the period between the Restoration of 1660 and the beginning of the Great Revival in the 1730s is one of 'dark and deathly slumber' the old nonconformists 'dry (or desiccated) dissenters' and Anglicans 'lukewarm timeservers'. The considerable Welsh printed literature of the period, moralistic and pious in tone, has long been ignored by Welsh readers and critics because of its fairly low literary value, but it is here put to excellent use by Dr Jenkins to show that the Welsh people were subjected to a series of intense moral campaigns, which tried to bring home to the bulk of the population the truths of the sixteenth-century Reformation . . . In the latter part of the book Dr Jenkins turns from the aims of religion to the authors themselves, the nascent printing and publishing trades, and to the subscribers, readers and collectors of books . . . ' (History)
`The author displays sound judgment and discrimination; he writes well and does not weary the reader with extended quotations; he has a sharp eye for the telling illustrations and a lightness of touch even when dealing with such formidable subjects as moral imperatives . . . ' (Journal of Modern History)