Voices from a Trunk: The Lost Lives of the Quaker Eddisons, 1805–1867

By Sara Woodall. Blackthorn Press, 2014. 260 pages. $9.99/eBook.

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UPDATE, August 2016: Voices from a Trunk is now available in paperback from American History Press.

This book exists in hardcopy, though it will be hard to find in other than eBook format in North America. The English family of Quaker Eddisons is Sara Woodall’s own family, and she discovered enough primary material in an old trunk to develop this book. Like the earliest Quakers, these nineteenth-century Friends lived in northern England. The main character, lawyer Edwin Eddison (likely related to Thomas Alva Edison), had chronic pain almost all his life, so his medical inquiry and treatments form a great deal of his concern as expressed in the documents. Other than that, the expanding industrialism and railroad system of the time figure prominently along with unique family characters and their stories. This book has numerous illustrations and an index.