Searching for the Apple Tree: Revisiting the Earliest Years of Organised English Freemasonry

Andrew Prescott and Susan Mitchell Sommers's Searching for the Apple Tree is a scholarly historical study revisiting the earliest documented years of organized English Freemasonry, working from primary lodge records and correspondence to test and in places revise long-accepted popular founding narratives about the fraternity's early eighteenth century organization. Its authority rests on that direct archival method, applied by historians specializing in Masonic and early modern British history specifically to correct claims that had circulated within Masonic historiography without close primary-source verification. As a work of historical revision, some of its specific reinterpretations remain under discussion within the specialist community of Masonic historians rather than universally settled, which is the normal condition of active historical research rather than a defect.