[The Imitation of Christ].

An early edition in English of Thomas à Kempis' great spiritual meditation De Imitatione Christi, an important work of Christian mysticism in the Late Medieval Devotio Moderna movement which called for religious reform and apostolic renewal.

Kempis (d.1471) was born in Kempen, in the Diocese of Cologne, but received his education at Deventer, in the Low Countries where he came into contact with the Fratres Vitae Communis, a majority lay confraternity founded by the Dutch deacon Gerard Groot, a leading figure in the Devotio Moderna movement. Members took no irrevocable vows, but lived according to the monastic principles of poverty, obedience and chastity, with all earnings put into a common fund.

Having completed his studies, Kempis joined the reformed monastery of the Augustinian Canon Regulars at Mount Saint Agnes, near Zwolle, where he was ordained priest in 1413, later becoming Sub-Prior in 1429. From here he wrote lives of Groot and his associate Florentius Radwyn, and composed the four disparate mystical tracts, together forming the Imitation, which began to circulate in manuscript in the 1430s. The first printed edition appeared in 1473, and the first English-language translation in 1503 — it has never been out of print since and remains a mainstay in the canon of Western literature.

8vo (21 x 13.5 cm); 4 engraved plates including frontispiece, occasional minor spotting, gift inscription in pen to rear free endpaper verso, occasional light spotting, slight offsetting to frontispiece and title, small puncture hole to A5 with slight loss of text to verso; contemporary sprinkled calf, covers ruled in gilt, spine in 6 gilt banded compartments, a little rubbed, very good; [12], 339, [3], 45, [1]pp.