author
James Janeway
d. 1674
A 17th-century Puritan minister whose books reached generations of young readers, he became especially known for writing vivid, earnest stories meant to stir faith and conscience. His best-known work, A Token for Children, stayed influential long after his early death.
1 Audiobook
Stories of Boys and Girls Who Loved the Saviour A Token for Children
by James Janeway
About the author
Born around 1636 in Lilley, Hertfordshire, James Janeway was an English Puritan minister and religious writer. He studied at Christ Church, Oxford, and later preached in London as a nonconformist minister during a time of sharp religious change and pressure on dissenters.
Janeway is remembered above all as the author of A Token for Children (1671), a book that tells the stories of pious children and their deaths with striking seriousness and emotion. The book became widely read and is often noted as one of the early classics of English religious reading for children. He also wrote other devotional and practical works, including accounts of providence and spiritual encouragement.
He died young in 1674, but his writing had a long afterlife. Readers continued to return to his books for their plain style, intensity, and pastoral concern, and he is still remembered as an important early voice in Protestant devotional literature for families and children.