Mysticism in English Literature

by Caroline F. E. Spurgeon

Bibliography

NOTE.—The literature on mysticism is growing very large, and the following is only a small selection from the general works on it. In the case of individual writers, references are given only where there might be difficulty about editions. Thus no references are given to the works of Burke, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Shelley, Tennyson, Browning, etc.

General

Underhill, Evelyn. Mysticism, Methuen, 1911. (See the valuable Bibliography of mystical works, pp. 563-585.) The Mystic Way, Dent, 1913.

Jones, Rufus M. Studies in Mystical Religion, Macmillan, 1909.

James, William. The Varieties of Religious Experience, Longmans Green, 1905.

Inge, W. R. Christian Mysticism, Methuen, 1899. Studies of English Mystics, Murray, 1905. Light, Life and Love. Selections from the German mystics. With Introduction. Methuen, 1904.

Hügel, Baron F. von. The Mystical Element in Religion, 2 vols.. Dent, 1909.

Delacroix, H. Études d'Histoiré et de Psychologie du Mysticisme, Paris, 1908.

Récéjac, E. Essai sur les fondements de la Connaissance Mystique, Paris, 1897 (translated by S. C. Upton, London, 1899).

Gregory, Eleanor C. A Little Book of Heavenly Wisdom. Selections from some English prose mystics, with Introduction. Methuen, 1902.

Foreign Influences

Plato (c. 427-347 B.C.). Opera, ed. J. Burnet, 5 vols. (Bibliotheca Scriptorum Classicorum Oxoniensis), 1899-1907.

Plato (Eng. trans.) The Dialogues, translated by B. Jowett, 5 vols., Oxford, 3rd ed., 1892.

Plotinus (A.D. 204-270). Plotini Ennéades, præsmisso Porphyrii de vita Plotini deque ordine librorum ejus libello, edidit R. Volkmann, 2 vols., Leipzig, 1883-84. (Eng. trans.) There is no complete English translation of the Enneads, only Select Works, translated by T. Taylor, 1817; re-issued, George Bell, 1895. (French trans.) Les Ennéades de Plotin, translated by M.-N. Bouillet, 3 vols., Paris, 1857-61. (This is complete and very good, but out of print.) The best critical account of Plotinus is in The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers, by Edward Caird, 2 vols., Maclehose, 1904.

Dionysius the Areopagite. Works, translated Parker, 1897.

Jacob Boehme (1575-1624). Works (incomplete), 4 vols., 1764-81. Reprint of complete works in progress, ed. C. J. Barker, published J. Watkins. (See Bibliography to chap. xii. of Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ix.)

Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772). Works, published by the Swedenborg Society, London. Selections, A Compendium of the Theological Writings, ed. Warren, 1901.

English Writers

Thomas de Hales (fl. 1250). A Luve Ron, (printed in) Morris's Old English Miscellany (E.E.T.S.), 1872.

Richard Rolle (1290?-1349). Richard Rolle and his Followers, ed. Horstmann, 2 vols., Sonnenschein, 1895-6. The Fire of Love, and the Mending of Life, ed. R. Harvey (E.E.T.S.), 1896.

Anonymous (c. 1350-1400). The Cloud of Unknowing, ed. Evelyn Underhill, J. Watkins, 1912.

All printed, with other early English mystical treatises, in The Cell of Self-Knowledge, ed. E. G. Gardner, Chatto & Windus, 1910. The Epistle of Prayer, The Epistle of Discretion, The Treatise of Discerning Spirits

Anonymous. The Epistle of Privy Counsel, in MS., British Museum, Harleian, 674 and 2473.

(William Langland, or other authors.? c. 1362-1399). The Vision of William Concerning Piers the Plowman, ed. Skeat, 2 vols., Oxford, 1886. Jusserand, J. J. Piers Plowman: a Contribution to the History of English Mysticism. Translated from the French by M. E. R., 1894.

Walter Hylton (d. 1396). The Scale of Perfection, ed. Guy, 1869; ed. Dalgairns, 1870. The Song of Angels, printed by Gardner, in The Cell of Self-Knowledge, 1910.

Julian of Norwich (1342-1413?). Revelations of Divine Love, ed. Warrack, Methuen, 1912.

Richard Crashaw (1613? 1649). Poems, ed. A. R. Waller, Cambridge 1904.

John Donne (1573-1631). Poetical Works, ed. Grierson, 2 vols., Oxford, 1912.

George Herbert (1593-1633). Poems, ed. Grosart, 1891; Oxford edition, 1907.

Christopher Harvey (1597-1663). Poems, ed. Grosart, 1874.

Henry More (1614-1687). Complete Poems, ed. Grosart, 1878. Life, by R. Ward, 1710, reprinted Theosophical Society, ed. Howard, 1911.

Henry Vaughan (1622-1695). Poems, ed. Chambers, 2 vols., 1896.

Thomas Traherne (c. 1636-1674). Poetical Works, ed. Dobell, 1903. Centuries of Meditations, ed. Dobell, 1908. Poems of Felicity, ed. Bell, Oxford, 1910.

William Law (1686-1761). Works, 9 vols., 1753-76, reprinted privately by G. Moreton, 1892-3. The Liberal and Mystical Writings of William Law, ed. W Scott Palmer, 1908. (See Bibliography to chap xii. of Cambridge History of English Literature, vol. ix., 1912.)

William Blake (1757-1827). Works, ed. Ellis and Yeats, 3 vols., Quaritch, 1893.

William Blake. Poetical Works (including Prophetic Books), ed, Ellis, 2 vols., Chatto and Windus, 1906. Poetical Works (exclusive of Prophetic Books), ed. Sampson, Oxford, 1905. (The best text of the poems.) Life, Gilchrist, 2 vols., Macmillan, 1880. William Blake, by A. C. Swinburne, Chatto and Windus (new ed.), 1906. William Blake, Mysticisme et Poésie, par P. Berger, Paris, 1907.

S. T. Coleridge (1772-1834). Complete Poetical Works, ed. E. H. Coleridge, 2 vols., Oxford, 1912. Biographia Literaria, ed. J. Shawcross, 2 vols., Oxford, 1907.

Emily Brontë (1818-1848). Complete Poems, ed. Shorter, Hodder and Stoughton, 1910. The Three Brontës, by May Sinclair, Hutchinson, 1912.

Coventry Patmore (1823-1896). Poems, G. Bell, 1906. The Rod, the Root, and the Flower, 1895. Memoirs and Correspondence of C. Patmore, by B. Champneys, 1900.

Richard Jefferies (1848-1887). The Story of my Heart, 1883, (reprinted) Longmans, 1907.

Francis Thompson (1859-1907). New Poems, Burns and Oates, 1897. Selected Poems, 1908. Sister Songs, 1908.