Thomae a Kempis Canonici Regularis Ordin. S. Augustini. De Imitatione Christi Libri Quatuor: Ex Nova Recensione Jacobi Merlo Horstii, Pastoris in Pasculo. [Thomas a Kempis, The Imitation of Christ in Four Books from the New Revision of J.M. Horstius]

by Thomas a Kempis

In Latin. 1644 Apud Corn. ab Egmond (Cologne, Germany), 2 1/4 x 3 5/8 inches tall x 1 1/4 inches thick, near-miniature, full period vellum binding, all page edges red, engraved title page with full-page engraving of Kempis on verso, [32], 534, [9] pp., complete. The vellum binding is characteristically grubby, edgeworn and chipped, especially lower backstrip. Lower band is broken, but the binding is quite solid.  Eighteenth century prior owner names, one inked out, to front free-endpaper. Title page/frontispiece leaf is lacking a 1 3/8-inch diagonal chip to lower tip, which clips the lower edge of the title page engraving but does not interfere with the frontispiece overleaf. Very light soiling to the lower margin of most pages in the first half of the book. Light staining to fore margin of last dozen or so pages of the book, and the last printed page - the last page of the end table of contents - has creasing to the right side of the page. Lacks blank rear free-endpaper, but is otherwise complete. Otherwise, apart from a small occasional instance of soiling or faint foxing, a very good copy of a scarce seventeenth century edition of the Imitation, among the first editions edited by Jacob Merlo Horstius and printed during his lifetime (he died the year this edition appeared). OCLC (No. 460738049, 247273204, 561539785) records only 5 copies worldwide - two in France, at the Bibliotheque Nationale de France (BnF) and the Bibliotheque Sainte-Genevieve in Paris; two in Germany, in Schwerin and Wolfenbuttel; and one at the British Library. 

Jacob Merlo Horstius (1597-1644), born in Horst, Holland, from whence he derives his name, was a prominent doctor of theology known as an effective preacher at the Lyskirchen in Cologne, where he served as pastor. In addition to this influential edit of The Imitation of Christ (De Imitatione Christi) - and most of a Kempis' works, with commentary - Horstius authored and edited numerous books, including a highly respected commentary of Estius on the Pauline Letters, the works of St. Bernard and an often translated and reprinted collection of prayers for the Catholic faithful, Paradisus Animae Christianae (Paradise of the Christian Soul). 

De Imitatione was written 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. There is probably no other book apart from the Bible which has been printed in so many editions and translations.