A ndrew R. M urphy . William Penn

The cover image of this excellent and highly readable biography is a portrait of the young William Penn wearing a breastplate. With intelligent, serious eyes and a striking face, he gazes out at the viewer in quiet expectation. Though attractive, it is not the only available image from his life. The other is a pastel portrait of Penn in his fifties. The intelligence in the eyes remains, but the face sags from stress and disappointment. This choice of cover images suggests Andrew R. Murphy’s approach in William Penn: A Life. Penn was not the founder of the Society of Friends, as Quakers call themselves, but he is certainly its most famous representative, especially in the United States. Becoming a convinced Quaker at twenty-three, this eldest son of one of England’s most famous admirals spent the greater part of his life as a Friend, but Murphy never lets the Quaker...

Art · Art history · Biography · Cover (algebra) · Disappointment · Face (sociological concept) · Portrait · Sociology · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History · Psychology · Social Psychology