Descriptions bibliographiques des manuscrits et des principales

Victor Retaux, Libraire-Editeur, 1898-01-01. Hardcover. Acceptable. In French. 1898 first edition, Victor Retaux (Paris), 5 3/4 x 8 1/2 inches tall hardcover, marbled paper-covered boards over leather spine, marbled endpapers, green ribbon marker sewn in, 490, [1] pp. Moderate soiling, rubbing and edgewear to covers, with a bit of cracking to the upper hinge of the front board, though the binding is quite firm. Bumping to the lower tip of the front cover, with resultant slight creasing to the lower tips of the first few pages. Ex-monastic library copy, with white call numbers to spine, stamp to title page and remnants of a removed card pocket to the rear pastedown. Old Parisian bookstore label to upper margin of front pastedown. Otherwise, apart from slight age toning, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - of this scarce bibliography. Due to the weight of the book, additional postage will be required for standard international orders. ~KM5~ [3.0P] In French. A bibliography of the principal manuscripts of, and primary editions of, The Imitation of Christ, Christendom's most beloved devotional work. The author of the bibliography, P.E. Puyol, surveyed hundreds of manuscripts and printed editions of The Imitation, and took a position on the then-raging academic debate over the authorship of the immortal work. Though there was no completely definitive resolution, the debate has largely been settled in favor of a Thomas a Kempis (1380-1471), who appears to have written (or at least copied) the work 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.