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In French. 1723 Chez Francois Foppens (Brussels, Belgium), 3 7/8 x 5 7/8 inches tall x 1 3/4 inches thick hardbound, blue paper-covered boards over black spine, old orange paper label to spine, engraved frontispiece (van Orley) and engraved headpieces to each of the four books, [24], 440 pp., complete. Soiling, rubbing and edgewear to covers, with chipping and cracking to backstrip, especially top spine cap and along right side. Peeling to upper tip of paper on rear cover. Soiling to page edges. Old tape repair to gutter between blank free-endpapers and verso of covers. Crack to top of gutter between pp. 14-15, but the binding holds quite securely. Otherwise, apart from some age-toning, a nice copy - clean and unmarked - of this scarce illustrated Corneille edition of the devotional classic. OCLC (Nos. 771581088 and 561559726) locates only two copies worldwide - one at the British Library St. Pancras in London, and the other at British National Bibliography in Wetherby, West Yorkshire, England. ~KMP5~ Pierre Corneille (1606-1684) was a French tragedian, and one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Moliere and Racine. In 1652, his play 'Pertharite' met with poor critical reviews and a disheartened Corneille decided to quit the theatre. He began to focus on this, an influential verse translation of the beloved devotional work, 'The Imitation of Christ,' which he completed in 1656. It is still widely considered the best of the several poetical translations attempted over the years. The Imitation of Christ was first written (or at a minimum, transcribed) - in his own form of Medieval Latin verse - by Catholic monk Thomas Kempis (circa 1380-1471), as four separate books completed between 1420 and 1427, at Mount Saint Agnes monastery, in the town of Windesheim, located in what is now the Netherlands. He wrote these works for the instruction of novices of his Augustinian monastic order, followers of Geert Groote's Brethren of the Common Life. But the writings quickly became popular among all the literate faithful. They were copied together in one manuscript as early as 1427, by Kempis, and copied (and later printed) together fairly consistently thereafter. Soon after hand-copied versions of the 'Imitatio Christi' initially appeared, the printing press was invented, and it was among the first books after the Bible to be printed. There is probably no other book other than the Bible which has been printed in so many editions and translations. Seller Inventory # KM5-1041-1723
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