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Thomas a Kempis The Following of Christ, in four books. Translated into English by the Rt. Rev. Richard Challoner, D.D.
Philadelphia Eugene Cummiskey 1824 Hardcover Very Good
24mo; 327 & [1, blank] pages; Scarce American edition of one of the main Christian devotional works - the Imitatio Christi, usually attributed to Thomas a Kempis, [1380-1471]. A nice copy, in contemporary full sheepskin, with flat spine separated into panels with pairs of gilt rules and a red leather label stamped in gilt "FOLLOWING / OF CHRIST" With some scattered foxing and some toning to the leaves, particularly the endpapers, as one might expect, but clean, intact and quite pleasant. There is a moving inscription in ink on the front free-endpaper: "Ann Seguier (?) / Frederick Town / Once a good friend / but now removed / from me by Death. / This book was her / last token of earthly / love" (Illegible signature). There is another ink inscription on the blank page which is the verso of the last leaf (page 327). This has partly bled through and affects the final leaf (as the paper was almost certainly not sized to recieve handwriting). This is a version specifically for Roman Catholics, having been translated into English by Richard Challoner [1691-1781] - an English Roman Catholic bishop, and a leading figure of English Catholicism during the greater part of the eighteenth century. Richard Challoner was entered in the English College at Douai in France, in 1705. He was to spend the next twenty-five years there, first as student, then as professor, and as vice-president of the university of Douai. During these years, Challoner became a Doctor of Divinity, was appointed professor of Philosophy, then Theology, and ultimately vice president of Douai college and prefect of studies. He returned to England in 1730 where life for Catholics was still sufficiently difficult that he needed to be disguised as a layman in London, where Challoner ministered to his flock, celebrating Mass secretly in obscure ale-houses, cockpits, and other out of the way sites where a few co-religionists might gather without arousing suspicion. In 1738 the president of Douai College, Robert Witham, died, and it appeared at first that Challoner would be appointed as his successor. But Bishop Benjamin Petre, the Vicar Apostolic of the London District, who already had Challoner as his vicar general, opposed this move, announcing that he wished to name Richard Challoner as his own coadjutor with right of succession. Ultimately, the Pope was moved to make this happen, and Challoner remained in England, where he undertook the first visitation of the district since the vicarage was created in 1688. It is worth noting that this "district" included ten counties, besides the Channel Islands and the British possessions in America—chiefly Maryland and Pennsylvania, as well as some West Indian islands. The visitation in the ten counties took over three years; it was deemed impossible to cross the seas to visit the American colonies, alas. Bishop Challoner's influence was felt in America, at the end of his long life and for many decades following, chiefly through his important revisions to the "Douai Bible" - the English language Bible for Roman Catholics. [The first American edition in 1790 was Challoner's version, and his revisions dominated the early American editions, even when some of the editions published in England favored earlier, and more nearly latinate, versions]. Challoner was amazingly prolific as a writer, translator, and editor of texts for Catholics, especially when one considers that much of his life had to be conducted in hiding. As to this handsome pocket-sized Imitation of Christ, it was produced by Eugene Cummiskey (1792?-1860), who had a common origin with the great Mathew Carey, who published the first American Douai Bible (a fine quarto, Philadelphia, 1790]. Like Carey, Cummiskey was an Irish-born immigrant to Philadelphia. In the same year as this little book appeared, Cummiskey published an important Douai Bible, the first to be set with stereotyped plates - a highly influential book for the next thirty years. In the next year, 1825, Eugene Cummiskey made another landmark in American Catholic book publishing, with what Wilfred Parsons called “… the greatest edition of the Bible this country has ever seen. Certainly the most magnificent American Catholic Bible ever produced, it is “… a majestic volume, [18] inches high, in large type, the only Catholic folio Bible we have ever had in this country.” [This quote is from Parsons, “Early Catholic Publishers of Philadelphia,” The Catholic Historical Review, Vol. XXIV, No.2, July, 1938 - I believe the assertion of the unique nature of Cummiskey's great folio Bible is still true]. On the other hand, this small Imitation of Christ measures about 4-1/2" tall, in its (original) binding. It is as large as it was meant to be; several bottom edges show deckles above the binder's trimming knife cut. There are said to be two thousand editions of Thomas a Kempis' influential text. The British Library has over 1000, but not, apparently, this 1824 Philadelphia example. Not in the LC, either. The American Antiquarian Society does have a copy. See Shoemaker 16651.
Price:
174.94 USD
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