author

John Lemley

b. 1843

A 19th-century Methodist editor and public speaker, he told the story of his own hard-won life in a lively 1875 autobiography. His book offers a first-person glimpse of religious journalism and public speaking in the post–Civil War Midwest.

1 Audiobook

Women in white raiment

Women in white raiment

by John Lemley

About the author

Born in 1843, John Lemley is known from the title page and catalog records of his 1875 Autobiography and Personal Recollections, where he is identified as the editor of The Golden Censer. The book presents him as both an editor and a public speaker, and it was published in Rockford, Illinois.

What stands out most about Lemley is that he left his own account of his experiences. In the preface, he frames autobiography as a way for readers to learn from the struggles and fortunes of another life, which suggests a writer interested not just in telling his story, but in encouraging others through it.

Because the readily available sources here are limited mainly to his own book record and digitized text, many personal details about his life remain unclear. Even so, he appears as a distinctly self-made 19th-century religious writer whose work preserves a small but vivid piece of American Methodist print culture.