Of the Imitation of Christ.

Illustrated by Laurence Housman & bound by Bumpus. A beautiful, finely printed and bound example 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.

Illustrated with a wood-engraved title-page and four plates after original designs by Laurence Housman, engraved by his sister Clemence Housman, a leading figure in the women's suffrage movement, and bound in red morocco tooled in gilt and blind by Bumpus of Oxford.

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.

Limited edition of 660 copies printed on Arnold & Foster's unbleached handmade paper; 8vo (23.5 x 14.5 cm); printed in red and black, wood-engraved title and 4 plates designed by Laurence Housman and engraved by Clemence Housman, woodcut initials and tailpieces, vellum endpapers; crushed red morocco by Bumpus of Oxford, upper cover panelled in blind with all-over design of fleurs-de-lis within single gilt fillet and blind borders, spine in 6 banded-compartments, lettered in gilt and with repeated fleurs-de-lis design, top-edge gilt, others uncut (and occasionally unopened), minor wear to extremities, joints a little rubbed, one or two spots and occasional offsetting, near fine; [4], xii, 324, [2]pp.

cf PMM 13.