My Way of Faith

"I HAVE PASSED THROUGH A PERIOD OF RELIGIOUS CRISIS, I HAVE THOUGHT MUCH ON RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS, AND I OFFER HERE MY PERSONAL REACTION TO THAT CRISIS"

First edition of M.D. Petre's autobiography, a philosophical memoir of the Modernist Crisis in the early twentieth-century Church. Uncommon.

Maude Dominica Petre was born into an old Catholic Recusant family (a family member went on to found the Cisapline Club). Petre was embroiled in the Modernist movement and her compassionate portraits of Friedrich von Hügel, Henri Bremond and Alfred Loisy, and especially George Tyrrell are definitive. Part I. Childhood and Early Religious Training, Part II. Youth and Middle Life, Part III. Process of Religious Belief, Part IV. Modernism, Part V. Three Friendships, Part VI. Before, During, and Since the Great War, Part VII. The Final Quest.

The publisher echoed Petre's modern stance in the design for the book. settling on a bold, unapologetic dust jacket with a sans-serif type face, unusual for the Art Deco era. Dedicated "To / Paul and Lilly Desjardins / and my much loved / friends of Pontigny." With a brief Foreword, initialed and dated "December, 1936" and a longer Introduction, initialed and dated "Storrington, Sept. 1936." The rear inner flap prints a list of editions of works by Baron von Hügel.