Rare books from Star of the Sea Books

"THIS HUMAN - DIVINE DIALOGUE"First edition of Chiara Lubich's history of Focolare, published by the movement's own New City Press. Complete in the original dust jacket with two photographs of Lubich. This slim volume by the foundress of the movement traces the origins and goals of Focolare. From its beginnings among a small group of girls in war-torn Trent during the Second World War, Focolare gradually extended its focus beyond the Roman Catholic Church to encompass a broad ecumenical approach based on a sense of "communitarian spirituality." Chiara Lubich received the Templeton Prize in 1977. Approbations.

FORTE SCUTUM SALUS DUCUM: "A STRONG SHIELD IS THE SALVATION OF LEADERS"First edition of this two-part biography of Adrian Fortescue, "the greatest authority on the liturgy of the Roman Rite the English-speaking world has ever known" (Michael Davies) and the founder of The Church of St. Hugh of Lincoln in Letchworth. Complete in the uncommon original dust jacket.Adrian Fortescue was descended from Blessed Adrian Fortescue, the recusant martyr beheaded at the Tower of London in July 1539 and beatified by Leo XIII in 1895 (just three years before the younger Fortescue was ordained). The versatile Fortescue embarked on a brilliant career, writing extensively on the Eastern churches and the Roman liturgy, before his untimely death in 1923. The work consists of a series of brief character sketches by the Rev. John Vance, followed by a Personal Memoir by J.W. Fortescue, Father Fortescue's nephew. The text is supplemented with a frontispiece portrait (by Mrs. M.D. Spooner), a photographic portrait, and six… Read More

"TO HAVE REMAINED INDEFINITELY AS AN ANGLICAN WOULD NOW MEAN FOR ME SPIRITUAL DEATH"First edition recounting Edward Charles Rich's 1956 "submission to the Catholic and Roman Church," in the original typographic dust jacket. Rich's Anglo-Catholicism grew into an Anglo-Papalism, driven by a desire for unity and a need for authority. The text, divided into nine chapters, concludes with Rich's epiphany: "That night I suddenly awoke and knew that not only had my work in the Church of England come to end; it had also ceased to be possible for me to continue. To have remained indefinitely as an Anglican would now mean for me spiritual death." Rich spent a few days at Downside Abbey, where it was arranged for him to be received at Farm Street on May 19th, the Vigil of Pentecost. The next day—after 35 years in the ministry of the Church of England—Rich made his first Communion and was confirmed by Cardinal Griffin in Westminster Cathedral. With a short Foreword (initialed "E.C.R") focusing on the doctrine… Read More

"I HAVE PASSED THROUGH A PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS CRISIS, I HAVE THOUGHT MUCH ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS, AND I OFFER HERE MY PERSONAL REACTION TO THAT CRISIS"First edition of M.D. Petre's autobiography, a philosophical memoir of the Modernist Crisis in the early twentieth-century Church. Uncommon.Maude Dominica Petre was born into an old Catholic Recusant family (a family member went on to found the Cisapline Club). Petre was embroiled in the Modernist movement and her compassionate portraits of Friedrich von Hügel, Henri Bremond and Alfred Loisy, and especially George Tyrrell are definitive. Part I. Childhood and Early Religious Training, Part II. Youth and Middle Life, Part III. Process of Religious Belief, Part IV. Modernism, Part V. Three Friendships, Part VI. Before, During, and Since the Great War, Part VII. The Final Quest. The publisher echoed Petre's modern stance in the design for the book. settling on a bold, unapologetic dust jacket with a sans-serif type face, unusual for the Art Deco era.… Read More

"THE WHOLE CHURCH IS THE SCHOOL OF AQUINAS" First American printing of a series of lectures, delivered in the spring of 1924 as part of a week-long celebration of St. Thomas Aquinas. Bound in Art-Deco-style black-and-white boards with printed label and complete in the scarce original dust wrapper. Both the label and the wrapper are decorated with the Dominican Hound and motto: "Laudare, Benedicere, Praedicare" ("To Praise, to Bless and to Preach" from the Dominican Missal, Preface of the Blessed Virgin Mary). The English Province of the Dominicans was "ordered by His Holiness, Pope Pius XI, to hold celebrations in honour of the Sixth Centenary of the Canonisation of St. Thomas Aquinas." The Dominicans responded by organizing festivities at the University of Manchester, from May 26-May 31, 1924. The lectures consisted of an inaugural address, delivered by Professor T.F. Tout: The Place of St. Thomas in History, followed by St. Thomas as a Philosopher (Prof. A.E. Taylor), The Theology of St. Thomas… Read More

"THE HIDDEN TRUTHS OF FRANCISCAN LITERATURE" First edition of this first English translation of Blessed Frederick Ozanam's study of medieval Franciscan literature—illustrated with portraits of St. Francis and St. Clare (after Tiberio D'Assisi) and Blessed Jacopone da Todi. This copy with the bookplate of J. Slingsby Roberts (the translator of this edition's "The Canticle of the Sun" and "The Ode to St. Clare") and the label of Samuel Weiser, the Occult bookseller then located at 845 Broadway on New York City's "Book Row."These studies, the "chief literary work" of Ozanam (the founder of the St. Vincent de Paul Society), focus on the devotional verse of St. Francis of Assisi (The Canticle of the Sun) and his early disciples, especially the writings of Clare of Assisi and Jacopone da Todi (Stabat Mater Dolorosa). With an Introduction by Amy E. Nellen, declaring "To Ozanam we are indebted for the discovery of the importance of Jacopone—that Laureate of Folly—who was content to win for himself scorn… Read More

"HIS SPIRIT WILL LIVE FOREVER IN THE HEARTS OF THE WORLD" Limited fine press edition of this biography of Saint Francis of Assisi, number 572 of only 650 copies printed. May Southworth's biography of "Il Poverello" is prefaced with her loving Dedication to the City of Saint Francis: "To San Francisco -- Beloved City / both for its own sake and for the sake of its patron Saint Francis / of whom, in beauty and sweetness of life / it may well be the name-child/I dedicate this book." The Foreword concludes: "His spirit will live forever in the hearts of the world and all acknowledge reverently the memory of one who taught us that love, mercy, and charity are as acceptable in the sight of the Lord as all the creeds and dogmas of the earth."A Certain Young Man of Assisi was produced by the great San Francisco printer, John Henry Nash, and illustrated by Will Wilke with ten plates, decorative tailpieces, and historiated initials in the text. The full-page plates include: Frontispiece, I. St. Damian, II. Arms… Read More

"THE PREDICAMENT OF CONTEMPORARY MAN"First edition of this early study of the most prominent Existential thinkers, with a special focus on the thought of Jean-Paul Sartre, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, and Martin Heidegger.With a short Preface (dated, "Saint Louis University / May 15, 1951"), Collins applies a Catholic perspective to the Philosophy of Being in "the critical standpoint...of a philosophical theism and realism" based in Augustine and Aquinas. "Contemporary Thomists—notably, Gilson and Maritain—have spoken of their doctrine as the authentic existentialism or, at the only philosophy of being in which existence receives its rightful place." But Collins also laments that "the patient, philosophical spadework has been brushed aside by some Christian and anti-Christian writers in favor of apologetic warfare."The work consists of six sections: I. Existential Backgrounds: Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, II. Sartre's Postulatory Atheism, III. Jaspers' Quest of Transcendence, IV. Marcel's… Read More