The Book of the Saviour (SET)

Assembled and edited by F. J. Sheed

Few men, if any, had as much an influence upon the leading lights of twentieth-century Catholicism as did F. J. Sheed. Helmsman of Sheed & Ward, the most influential Catholic publishers in the English-speaking world, Sheed was friend or publisher (or often both) to G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, Sigrid Undset and Gertrud von Le Fort, Ronald Knox, Evelyn Waugh, and Christopher Dawson, and many others. Having this singular grace of familiarity with Catholic letters, Sheed first compiled The Mary Book (1950), curating pertinent selections from Sheed & Ward titles. The guiding question being: “Each of [our] books told some part of what is to be known about Our Lady extraordinarily well; if no one of them covered everything, among them they covered a great deal. How much did they cover?” The Mary Book was the answer to that question; The Book of the Saviour (1952) the answer to the same about Jesus Christ.

Volume One

With prose and poetry selections by Chesterton and Maisie Ward, Undset and Robert Southwell, and Caryll Houselander and C. C. Martindale (among others), The Book of the Saviour: The Incarnation is a remarkable summary of Catholic genius and rewarding reading for the Advent and Christmas seasons.

Volume Two

With prose and poetry selections by Knox and Walter Farrell, Oscar Wilde and Chesterton, Alfred Noyes and Eileen Duggan (among others), The Book of the Saviour, Volume Two: The Proclamation of the Kingdom is an impressive representation of Catholic genius on what Pope St. John Paul II called the “the mysteries of light.”

Volume Three

With prose and poetry selections by Knox and Caryll Houselander, Vincent McNabb and Jean Daniélou, and Francis Thompson and Gertrud von Le Fort (among others), The Book of the Saviour, Volume Three: The Paschal Mystery is a striking summation of Catholic genius on Christ’s passion, death, and resurrection.

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F. J. Sheed (1897–1981) was a writer, publisher, and speaker, widely recognized as one of the most important Christian intellectuals of the twentieth century. With his wife, Maisie Ward, he founded the publishing house of Sheed & Ward, which revived the Catholic literary movement and promoted innumerable intellectual, literary, and artistic treasures of the Catholic Church.