The Making of a Mystic: New and Selected Letters of Evelyn Underhill

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) achieved international fame in 1911 with the publication of her book, Mysticism, now in its eighteenth edition. In the course of her long career she published nearly forty books, including three novels and two volumes of poetry, as well as numerous poems in periodicals. She was the religion editor for Spectator, a friend of T. S. Eliot (her influence is visible in his last masterpiece, Four Quartets), and the first woman invited to lecture on theology at Oxford University.In time for the centennial celebration of her classic Mysticism, this volume of Underhill's letters will enable readers and researchers to follow her as she reconciled her beliefs with her daily life. The letters reveal her personal and theological development and clarify the relationships that influenced her life and work. Drawing from collections previously unknown to scholars, this volume demonstrates an exceptional range and scope, including Underhill's earliest letters from boarding school to her mother, correspondence with Nobel prize laureate Rabindinrath Tagore and Sir James Frazier, and a letter written to T. S. Eliot from what was to be her deathbed in London in 1941 as the London Blitz blazed around her.