Radiance: A Spiritual Memoir of Evelyn Underhill - Softcover

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) was a gifted spiritual writer, novelist and poet, who published more than thirty books including her pivotal work, Mysticism, published in 1911. Underhill became the Upton Lecturer in the Philosophy of Religion at Manchester College in 1921 and was the first woman to give a series of lectures on theology at Oxford.

Bernard Bangley has authored and edited numerous books, including Christian Classics in Modern English, Talks on the Song of Songs by Bernard of Clairvaux, and Rooted in Faith: Meditations from the Reformers. A retired Presbyterian minister, Rev. Bangley lives in Virginia.

Evelyn Underhill (1875–1941) is perhaps best known for her 1911 classic, Mysticism, continuously in print to the present day. An English laywoman with no theological education, she wrote more than 30 spirituality books, lectured to Oxford scholars and Church of England clergy, led spiritual retreats and encouraged ecumenism decades before women began to assume religious leadership. Bangley has selected excerpts from her published writings, journals, letters and speeches to show Underhill's personal spiritual development as she moved from cool academic reflection through struggle and doubt to settled trust: "I do feel that trusting God must mean trusting Him through thick and thin." One reason for Underhill's popularity may have been her view that mysticism was for everybody, in all circumstances: "The true mystic quest may as well be fulfilled in the market as in the cloister, by Joan of Arc on the battlefield as by Simeon Stylites on his pillar." Hers was no self-absorbed, feel-good spirituality, however: "Any spiritual view which focuses attention on ourselves, and puts the human creature with its small ideas and adventures in the center foreground, is dangerous till we recognize its absurdity." Her God was transcendent: "a Reality independent of the worshipper, which is always more or less deeply colored by mystery, and which is there first." Despite its subtitle, this book is not really a memoir; Underhill wrote in the first person only in her journals and, in any case, distrusted subjective experience. It is nevertheless a captivating introduction to one of the 20th century's most appealing spiritual writers.
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