It is declared by those who have had experience in the writing and publishing of biographies of the Quaker founder of Pennsylvania, that his life is not a matter of marked interest to the present generation of book readers. Philadelphia boasts few recollections of William Penn except as a wealthy lord proprietor of virgin American land which he sold and leased to all men on liberal terms, setting up and administering here what was for its time a most wise and tolerant system of government. . . . William Penn’s writings all taken together, and including his letters and public papers, as the have been selected for publication, fill several large volumes. . . . Pennsylvania’s first contributor of a vital writing to that body of literature which makes up the Quaker theology in so far as the Society can be held to have one, is Thomas Chalkley. . . . Chalkley’s journal, which is an interesting account of his travels, was published with some religious essays in a fat volume, by order of Philadelphia Monthly Meeting of Friends, by Benjamin Franklin in 1749, and it has been reprinted repeatedly. The moral austerity of this famous Quaker preacher was not excelled by any of New England’s Puritans. . . . Keywords: The Literary History of Philadelphia, Ellis Oberholtzer, Quaker, William Penn, Thomas Chalkley, Preacher,

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