The Story of a Soul

The autobiography, letters, songs and prayers of St. Therese of Lisieux are all present in this complete, unabridged edition of The Story of a Soul.

Saint Therese was born in Alençon, Orne in 1873. Her youth was fraught with peril - the disease enteritis, having claimed the lives of her four siblings, was a grave early challenge which she surmounted. Her family was religious, practising fasts and festivals in accordance with the Christian calendar, and practised core tenets of the Christian faith such as offering charity to the unfortunate. 

A religious young prodigy, Therese felt a profound calling to the Christian faith during her teenage years, journeying to Lisieux in Normandy to begin her life as a cloistered nun. She entered into the convent at the age of fifteen, and soon impressed her peers with her purity of devotion and a deep understanding of many matters of faith. She was well-read, having found and absorbed many of the Christian documents of the past such as the Imitation of Christ. 

Continuing her religious life in secluded contemplation, Therese intended to become a saint and worked tirelessly at devoting herself to the divine, writing plays, songs and correspondence as well as her autobiography during her years as a nun. Tragically Therese perished from tuberculosis at the age of twenty four - bravely facing the pain of the affliction, she defined the illness as a part of her spiritual journey. 

The clarity and simplicity she imbued to her writings resounded considerably with the Christian public, and she was posthumously canonised by Pope Pius X in 1914 - the Pope was awed by her devotion, calling Therese "the greatest Saint of modern times."