Overview

The Imitation of Christ is a Christian devotional text divided into four books, which provide detailed spiritual instructions: Helpful Counsels of the Spiritual Life, Directives for the Interior Life, On Interior Consolation, and On the Blessed Sacrament. The books are characterized by their emphasis on the interior life and withdrawal from the world, as opposed to an active imitation of Christ by friars. The Imitation is perhaps the most widely read Christian devotional work next to the Bible, and is regarded as a devotional and religious classic. Its popularity was immediate, and the text was printed 745 times before 1650. Apart from the Bible, no book had been translated into more languages than the Imitation of Christ at the time. This cloth-bound book includes a Victorian inspired dust-jacket, and is limited to 100 copies.

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9781774377444

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Thomas a Kempis (c. 1380 - 25 July 1471) was a German-Dutch canon regular of the late medieval period and the author of The Imitation of Christ, one of the most popular and best known Christian devotional books. He was a member of the Modern Devotion, a spiritual movement during the late medieval period, and a follower of Geert Groote and Florens Radewyns, the founders of the Brethren of the Common Life. Thomas spent his time between devotional exercises in writing and in copying manuscripts. He copied the Bible no fewer than four times, one of the copies being preserved at Darmstadt, Germany, in five volumes. In its teachings he was widely read and his works abound with biblical quotations, especially from the New Testament. As subprior he was charged with instructing novices, and in that capacity wrote four booklets between 1420 and 1427, later collected and named after the title of the first chapter of the first booklet: The Imitation of Christ. Thomas More said it was one of the three books everybody ought to own. Thirteen translations of the Imitatio Christi and three paraphrases in English seem to have been published between 1500 and 1700. Thomas died near Zwolle in 1471.

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