God's Book; And other Poems
Ditchling: St. Dominic's Press, 1930. First edition. Octavo, original black pebbled cloth spine, charcoal cloth boards, uncut, original glassine wrapper. A crisp, clean book in the substantial remains of the original wrapper. A nearly-fine copy. Item #756
"WITHIN THY FATHER'S ARMS / PEACE BE TO DEATH'S ALARMS / AND IN GOD'S MOTHERING BREAST / TAKE, CHILD, UNTROUBLED REST"
Limited St. Dominic's Press edition of thirty poems by Father Vincent McNabb—"a thirteenth-century monk living in twentieth-century London." Illustrated with a frontispiece portrait (captioned: "Fr. Vincent McNabb, O.P. / from a painting by Kenneth Green") printed on colored paper-stock, and three wood-engraved plates by Thomas Derrick.
A member of the Order of Preachers for over half a century, McNabb was well-known for his asceticism. The saintly Dominican was animated by the social teachings of the Church and revered by his Distributist contemporaries such as Hilaire Belloc, G.K. Chesterton and Eric Gill. McNabb "took the Pope's teaching to a fundamentalist extreme, proclaiming that all industrialism was morally evil. A devout advocate of the simple life, he walked everywhere whenever possible, spurning modern forms of transport. He wore homespun robes and even refused to use a typewriter on the ground that it was machinery" (Joseph Pearce).
McNabb's enthusiasms extended to evangelism: "Indeed, Father McNabb was like St. Francis in so far as he acted as a beacon bringing others to Christianity. These included...Thomas Derrick, who was received into the Church by Father McNabb in 1922" (Pearce). Hand-printed in Ditchling on handmade paper in an edition of only 480 copies. This copy bears the original errata slip, printed in red and inserted after the title leaf, with the noted errors carefully corrected in pencil in the text. Joseph Pearce, Literary Converts: Spiritual Inspiration in an Age of Unbelief. An interesting Dominican contribution to the Catholic Literary Revival.
Price: $175.00