Introduction
As a pious Presbyterian, Elizabeth Wilkinson (née Gifford) wrote her notable contribution to the spiritual autobiography genre, as her ‘Narrative of God's gracious dealings with her soule’, before her marriage in 1646 or 1647. It was published only posthumously, as ‘coppyed exactly out of her own hand writing’, incorporated (on pp. 26-34) in an account of ‘The Life and Death of that Eminent Saint of God, Mris Elizabeth Wilkinson, late wife to Dr Henry Wilkinson Principall of Magdalen Hall in Oxford’ appended to Edmund Staunton's A Sermon preacht at Great Milton in the County of Oxford: Decemb: 9. 1654. At the Funerall of Mris Elizabeth Wilkinson (Oxford, 1659). Neither the original manuscript of this ‘Narrative’ nor any other manuscripts by her are known to survive.
Peter Beal