A biography of Nicholas Ferrar (1593-1637) and his family with a focus on his background, his education and experiences that shaped that ministry as well as the circumstances that brought the family to the village of Little Gidding in Cambridgeshire. Avoiding the hagiographic tone adopted by Ferrar's biographers, Joyce Ransome shows how the search for community was central to his life and has therefore become the unifying theme around which she has constructed his biography. br>