Poems and Counsels on Prayer and Contemplation

Among the earliest women to have their work in the English language printed, Dame Gertrude More was a Benedictine nun who spent her brief adult life in exile on the Continent. An important figure in the revitalization of English Benedictine life in the seventeenth century, she–along with her teacher Dom Augustine Baker and her community of nuns at Cambrai (now at Stanbrook Abbey)–provides a key link in the continuity of the medieval and modern western contemplative traditions of the English-speaking world. In the poems and counsels on prayer and contemplation found in this new edition of Dame Gertrude’s shorter works, the reader will find subtle beauty, penetrating psychological and spiritual acuity, and a driving desire for divine union. Dame Gertrude’s is a powerful and rare voice from the early modern cloister, speaking with wisdom of the contemplative life and the mysteries of the human soul.