The Works of Thomas Traherne III: Commentaries of Heaven, Part 2: Al-Sufficient to Bastard

Traherne’s voice can be heard as never before. THE TABLET

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 beensince miscellaneous publications of his poetry and devotional writings.
The Works of Thomas Traherne brings together all of Traherne’s extant works in a definitive, printed 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 It will include both his published and unpublished works, and his notebooks, presenting them insofar as possible by manuscript, giving due attention to their physical aspects and to their integrity as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 95prose 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.