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1774 n.p. (London), 3 x 5 inches tall leather bound, 252 pp. Moderate to heavy rubbing and edgewear to covers, with cracking and chipping to spine and bumping and abrasions to all four tips. Cracking to spine and front joints, which have been glued at some point, but all holds and the binding remains quite solid. 1785 prior owner name ('Elizabeth Luke') to blank front free-endpaper and top of title page. Otherwise, apart from a few pages with slight marginal soiling, a very good copy - clean, bright and unmarked - of this exceptionally rare early John Wesley abridged version of The Imitation of Christ, a fifteenth century Catholic work Wesley translated from its original Latin as part of his faith formation, before helping to establish Methodism. The English Short Title Catalog (No. N43290) locates only three copies worldwide - one at Harvard, and the other two at English libraries in Sheffield and Lancaster. ~KMP~ [1.0P] A rare pre-American Revolutionary period London issue of John Wesley's 'extracts' from the fifteenth century devotional classic The Imitation of Christ. Anglican cleric and theologian John Wesley (1703-1791), with his brother Charles and fellow cleric George Whitefield, founded Methodism. John Wesley made a full translation of The Imitation from Latin to English in 1735 as one of his first published works. After the birth of the Methodist movement in 1738-39, Wesley produced this greatly abridged version, entitled 'An Extract of the Christian's Pattern,' first printed in 1741 and reprinted dozens of times thereafter in mostly tiny, pocket-sized editions like this, most of which didn't survive heavy devotional use by adherents and are therefore uncommon in collections today. Only three of this issue - whose printer is still unidentified by bibliographers - survive in collections catalogued by ESTC worldwide. The Imitation of Christ was written in Latin 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.
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