"Ann Lee may be one of the most extraordinary and mysterious women in the history of Western culture. From humble origins in Manchester, England, where she was born in 1736, this illiterate daughter of a blacksmith became a visionary religious leader who was thought by her followers to have been the second incarnation of Christ. When she died in America at age forty-eight, having brought her faithful to a new land on the eve of the Revolution, she left behind a religious movement that was to have thousands of followers and become our most important and successful utopian community."--BOOK JACKET.