illustrated by Laurence & Clemence Housman
KEMPIS, Thomas à.
Of the Imitation of Christ. In four books by Thomas à Kempis.
London, Kegan Paul, Trench Trübner & Co. Ltd., Chiswick Press, 1898.
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; publisher's limp vellum, yapp edges, top-edge gilt, others uncut, a little soiled, repaired split to front hinge, very good; [4], xii, 324, [2]pp.
cf.PMM 13.
Stock code 117646
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Of the Imitation of Christ.
ARISTEAS of Marmora; DONE, John (translator).
[Letter of Aristeas].
[1633].
The scarce first edition in English of the Letter of Aristeas, the earliest account of the translation of the Hebrew Bible into Greek, which contains the first mention of the library of Alexandria
£1,250.00
[GENEVA VERSION]; STERNHOLD & HOPKINS (Psalmes).
The Bible.
1589.
A handsome sixteeth-century edition of the Geneva Bible, finely bound in eighteenth-century gilt-panelled calf, without the Concordance, but with the Booke of Common Prayer and metrical Psalmes
£8,000.00
KEMPIS, Thomas à.
[Imitatio Christi].
1677.
A near fine example of an English semi-sombre binding enclosing Thomas à Kempis' great spiritual meditation, De Imitatione Christi in English translation
£2,250.00
