The Imitation of Christ: being the autograph manuscript of thomas a kempis, De Imitatione Christi, reproduced in facsimile from the original preserved in the royal library at brussels. With an introduction by charles ruelens, Keeper of the Department of Manuscripts, Royal Library Brussels

London: Elliot Stock, 62 Paternoster Row, E.C., 1879. [2], 5-16pp, [236], including four blank leaves. Without the initial advertisement leaf (likely not included in this limited vellum issue). Contemporary gilt-tooled and panelled brown morocco, A.E.G., by Ramage. Rubbed to extremities, cracking to joints with short chip at head of upper joint. From the recently dispersed family library of the descendants of John Duke Coleridge (1820-1894), inscribed 'C. Coleridge, 1 Sussex Square, 1879' to FFEP. A choice facsimile - printed entirely on vellum - of the autograph manuscript of De Imitatione Christi by Thomas a Kempis, (1379/80-1471), late-medieval German Catholic monk. Undoubtedly his greatest and most widely-known work, De imitatione Christi is an ascetic manual of devotion rooted within the German-Dutch mystical school, and widely cited as an influence to Christian conversions, including by Methodist founder John Wesley and abolitionist John Newton, author of 'Amazing Grace'. The work originally circulated in manuscript form, and remained popular in the era of print; indeed, as the preface to this facsimile by Charles Ruelens (Keeper of the Dept. of Manuscripts, Royal Library Brussels) notes, no book 'save the Holy Bible, has been reproduced as the "Imitation of Jesus Christ". Before the close of the fifteenth century, numberless transcripts had been made by monks and scribes, and at least eighty editions had been issued from the press between the date of that printed by Gunther Zainer at Augsburg, about 1470, and the year 1500'. Ruelens continues by noting that of all the early manuscript copies, 'the most precious is the autograph manuscript...now preserved among the manuscript treasures of the Royal Library at Brussels, where it is numbered 5855-5861', and further elaborates on the later provenance of that volume, and its involvement in the firm attribution of a Kempis' authorship by Dr. Carl Hirsche. This facsimile, published simultaneously by Elliot Stock in London and H.C.A. Thieme in Nijmegen, was made 'with all the accuracy which photography can ensure', and presented in a binding 'taken from that of a contemporary Dutch Horae'. Contemporary publisher's advertisements to other works suggest that the trade issue was available 'in contemporary binding, or paper boards' at 10s. 6d, and 'polished morocco antique' at a guinea. However, of this issue, printed entirely on vellum, we could locate no trade offering. We could locate just two other copies of this London edition printed on vellum; the Milltown Park copy (previously from the library of Sir Edward Sullivan, Sotheby's, 19 May 1890, lot 76), and another, ex the stock of the W.J. Leighton (Sotheby's, 2-5 November 1920, lot 3790. A third on vellum, of the Nijmegen edition, was offered as part of Bibliotheca Bibliographica Breslaueriana, Part III (Christies, 27 June 2005, lot 1166). All were bound by Ramage in what would seem to be identical bindings to this example. . 16mo in 4s.