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Between 1924 and 1938, Evelyn Underhill compiled two personal prayer books for use when conducting spiritual retreats at Pleshey (the retreat house for the diocese of Chelmsford). The prayers were carefully selected and include quotes from a variety of theologians and writers in Christian spirituality, as well as her own very rich, metaphorical and theologically deep prayers.
These collections are now available for the first time.
Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) was an English Anglo-Catholic writer and pacificist known for her numerous works on religion and spiritual practice, in particular Christian mysticism.
Dr Robyn Wrigley-Carr is senior lecturer in Theology and Spirrituality at Alphacrusis College, Sydney, Australia. She has a Masters degree in Spiritual Theology from Regent College, Vancouver, and was awarded a PhD by the University of St Andrews in 2013 for her doctorate on Baron Friedrich von Hugel, Evelyn Underhill’s spiritual director of whom she said, ‘I owe my spiritual life’.
In the diocese of Chelmsford we have always treasured our association with Evelyn Underhill and her love for what is now our Retreat House at Pleshey. It was therefore tremendously exciting to discover her handwritten collection of prayers. This book now makes those prayers available to everyone. To read them and to pray them though is to enter into the heart and experience the spirituality of one of the most significant Christian writers of the 20th century. – Stephen Cottrell, Bishop of Chelmsford
