Mortal Beauty, God's Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins

When most people today hear the name Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), they remember him as a British poet. But during his lifetime he was known primarily as a Jesuit priest, a zealous Roman Catholic who converted from Anglicanism at the age of 22 and devoted his life including his literary talents to the Catholic Church. According to his own wishes, most of his poems were not published until after his death. In Mortal Beauty, God's Grace: Major Poems and Spiritual Writings of Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Thornton and Susan Varenne gather not just Hopkins's spiritual poetry, but also some relevant ""weather journal"" entries (which use seemingly mundane observations on the weather as springboards to spiritual prose) and letters, including personal letters about his conversion. (Dec. 9)