Nachfolgung Christi
THOMAS À KEMPIS; Johann Michael SAILER, translator.
Das Buch von der Nachfolgung Christi … Zweyte Ausgabe. Munich, Ignaz Joseph Lentner, and Leipzig, Hartmann, 1820.
12mo, pp. viii, 458, [2 (blank)]; very slight marginal browning to title, else a very good copy; bound in contemporary green straight-grained sheep, borders roll-tooled in gilt, spine gilt à travers and lettered directly in gilt, edges gilt, pink pastedowns; very slightly rubbed; 24 lines of verse in contemporary ink to front flyleaf, pressed flower between pp. 322 and 323.
Uncommon ‘second edition’ of Thomas à Kempis’s Imitatio Christi as translated by Johann Michael Sailer, Bishop of Regensburg.
The principal work of the great ascetical writer Thomas à Kempis (c. 1380–1471) and perhaps the best-known spiritual manual, the Imitation of Christ is here translated into German by Johann Michael Sailer (1751–1832), the Jesuit theologian, professor at Dillingen and Ingolstadt, teacher of the future Ludwig I of Bavaria, and eventually Bishop of Regensburg.
Although designated as the second edition on the title, Sailer’s Nachfolgung Christi had in fact been frequently reprinted since its first publication by Lentner in 1794; it remained popular and in print throughout the following century.
An early owner has added twenty-four lines of devotional verse in German to the front flyleaf.