Ann Lee was one of the most extraordinary and mysterious women in the history of western culture - possibly the most influential artisan woman since Joan of Arc. Born in Manchester in 1736, she was the illiterate daughter of a blacksmith and later wife of another. When she died in America, aged 48, she left behind a religion which was to have thousands of followers and which became America's most important and successful utopian community... A cook in the local hospital, after the deaths of her four children she became an inmate of the Lunatick Ward where she had a revelation that she was Ann the Word, the female embodiment of Christ. On her release she took over the leadership of the Shaking Quakers, and in 1774 set sail for America with a tiny band of followers......