Thomas Traherne (1637-1674), a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were first printed. Since then, only selections of his poetry and devotional writings have been fully-edited for print publication, a gap which The Works of Thomas Traherne will remedy by bringing together Traherne's extant works, including his notebooks, in a definitive, printed edition for the first time.

Thomas Traherne [1637-1674], a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were first printed. There have been since only miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings fully edited, a gap which The Works of Thomas Traherne will remedy by bringing together Traherne's extant works, including his notebooks, in a definitive, printed edition for the first time.

Volume IV makes available a single manuscript book held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, never before published, the Church's Year-Book, Meditations and Devotions from the Resurrection to All Saints' Day, a work of celebration for the establishment and subsequent expansion of the universal Church and for the re-established Church of England. Also included is the anonymous devotional book that served as the key to the initial identification of Traherne's manuscripts, A Serious and Pathetical Contemplation of the Mercies of GOD, in Several Most Devout and Sublime Thanksgivings for the Same, first printed in 1699 and commonly referred to as the 'Thanksgivings'. Bothare works of universal appeal, learning and insight that show Traherne to be engaged in the central issues of his age and are essential reading for students not only of Traherne but also of seventeenth-century theological, liturgical and devotional literature. Printed in the Appendix is Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation, a work of questionable attribution to Traherne, as well as William T. Brooke's account of the discovery of Traherne's manuscripts, 'The Story of the Traherne MSS. By their finder', held at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, and published for the first time.

Thomas Traherne [1637? - 1674], a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were discovered. There have been since miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings.
The Works of Thomas Traherne brings together all of Traherne's extant works in a definitive edition for the first time. It will include both his published and unpublished works, and his notebooks, presenting them insofar as possible by manuscript, giving due attention to their physical aspects and to their integrity as manuscript books.
Volumes II and III make available the Commentaries of Heaven, preserved in one manuscript held at the British Library. Organised topically, it was intended to cover the whole of the alphabet but extends only through `A' and part of `B', with 95 prose articles altogether. It possesses the characteristics of a commonplace book, encyclopaedia and dictionary, and contains poetry, meditations, philosophical discourse, and polemic. The unusual range of subjects treated, from `Abhorrence' to `Ant', `Aristotle' to `Atom', shows Traherne to be an imaginative and compelling writer in his approach to Christian theology, while maintaining both his integrity and orthodoxy as a priest.

Thomas Traherne [1637?-1674], a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were discovered. Although his reputation as a metaphysical poet in the tradition of Donne and Herbert has grown since then, there have only been miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings, with much of his output still unpublished.
The Works of Thomas Traherne brings together all of Traherne's extant works in a definitive edition for the first time, with the purpose of giving a sense of the manuscript or printed originals. His works not published in print will be edited by manuscript insofar as possible, giving due attention to their physical aspects and to their integrity as manuscript books. The text of Traherne's works will be printed in seven volumes, with an eighth volume of commentary, and a further volume of his notebooks.
This first volume makes available in print four treatises contained in a single manuscript recently discovered in 1997 at Lambeth Palace Library. While they bear the stamp of Traherne's unique character of thought and writing, they are diverse in subject and form. Traherne wrote against a background of scepticism as well as a growing atheism. These four works show him to be profoundly aware of the currents of hisage, theological, political, sociological and scientific, to which he responded with thoughtful and imaginative insights. They show him also to be a compelling apologist for the Christian religion and for the goodness of the church.
This much needed and important edition of the works of Thomas Traherne makes a valuable contribution not only to Traherne studies but also to seventeenth-centurystudies in general.

Thomas Traherne [1637? - 1674], a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were discovered. There have been since miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings.
The Works of Thomas Traherne brings together all of Traherne's extant works in a definitive edition for the first time. It will include both his published and unpublished works, and his notebooks, presenting them insofar as possible by manuscript, giving due attention to their physical aspects and to their integrity as manuscript books.
Volumes II and III make available The Commentaries of Heaven, preserved in one manuscript held at the British Library. Organised topically, it was intended to cover the whole of the alphabet but extends only through `A' and part of `B', with 95 prose articles altogether. It possesses the charactertistics of a commonplace book, encyclopaedia and dictionary, and contains poetry, meditations, philosophical discourse, and polemic. The unusual range of subjects treated, from `Abhorrence' to `Ant', `Aristotle' to `Atom', shows Traherne to be an imaginative and compelling writer in his approach to Christian theology, while maintaining both his integrity and orthodoxy as a priest.

Thomas Traherne (1637?-1674), a clergyman of the Church of England during the Restoration, was little known until the early twentieth century, when his poetry and Centuries of Meditations were first printed. There have beensince only miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings. The Works of Thomas Traherne brings together for the first time all Traherne's extant works, including his notebooks, in a definitive, printed edition. The poems in this volume are independent, not extracted from Traherne's prose, and demonstrate the range of his imagination. Each poem has its own unique form, line numbers, meter and rhyme, and they are personal in nature with a didactic purpose, filled with joy and thanksgiving. They are also new transcriptions from four manuscripts, held variously at the Bodleian, the British Library, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. They include thirty-seven autograph poems from the "Dobell Folio"; Poems of Felicity, taken from Philip Traherne's incomplete edition of his brother's poems; The Ceremonial Law, an incomplete, autograph, narrative poem in rhyming couplets, wherein Traherne not only gives a reading of events in the Old Testament as types fulfilled in the New, but also interprets his own spiritual journey in terms of the stories from Pentateuch; and the "Early Notebook", made up of notes from various sources, probably from Thomas's undergraduate days, as well as five autograph poems. Included in the Appendix are the "Manuscript foliation of Poems" and "The Story of the Traherne MSS. by their Finder" by William T. Brooke; a glossary and index of titles and first lines complete the volume.