True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin (Hardback Classic)

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Those of you who have been readers of this blog for a while know that one of my favorite publishers is Baronius Press.  For finely crafted Bibles, prayer books, and hardcover classics, they are about as good as it get in the Catholic publishing world.  Over the years, I have been blessed to receive review copies from Baronius, mostly in the form of Bibles.  I decided, however, a few weeks back to order one of their hardback classic books.  I don't know about you, but as my desire to only purchase well-made Bibles has increased, the same thing is starting to happen for other spiritual books from the Catholic tradition.  Many of my favorite older, vintage books, for example from Msgr. Knox, are in great condition with a strong binding, even though a few of them are almost 100 years old.  So, I asked myself, why not start to slowly get some of the more important Catholic books in a good quality edition?    

So, I decided to first look for a new edition of one of my favorite books The True Devotion to the Blessed Virgin by St. Louis-Marie De Montfort.  I had a one volume complete collection of his works, which was really beautiful, but it, unfortunately, was a casualty in the great flood of August 11th, 2014.  So, I did a quick Amazon search for True Devotion and there popped up the Baronius edition.  I'll be honest, I had forgotten that they had re-published it.  So, I decided to order it, assuming it would be of high quality.  I was surprised to find he price was only a bit over $20.00.

When it arrived, I instantly fell in love with it, much like I did when I first opened up my Knox Bible.  The size is a very portable at 5 1/2" X 8 1/3".  The width is quite thin too, encompassing only 176 pages.  The binding is sewn and the hardcover is a blue bonded leather over 1/8" boards.  The blue color matches the one used for The Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary that they offer.  The cover material makes them a match, as you will see below.  In addition to that similarity, they both use a thick paper.  By thick paper, I mean that it is noticeably thicker than what is used for their Bibles and prayer books.  This makes the print, which is dark and well-spaced, jump off the page.  This book is a delight to read from, which is in sharp contrast to a much smaller paperback edition of True Devotion that I have had for a number of years.  This volume is printed in India.

There is a lovely yellow ribbon included, which makes it very suitable to daily devotional reading.  As with the majority of the volumes Baronius publishes, there are head and tail bands as well as endpapers.  I love endpapers.  One of things I miss about my Knox Bible, which I had rebound in goatskin by Leonard's, is the missing endpapers that needed to come out.  The ones here in the True Devotion add a nice touch of class and elegance to this book.  

Along with the text, itself, there is a preface from Baronius Press, as well as one from the translator Fr. Faber.  Also, there is a Letter to the Clergy (1883) from Herbert, the bishop of Salford.  In the appendix, there is a supplement on How to Practise this Devotion in Holy Communion and an act of Consecration to Jesus by the hands of Mary.  

Overall, I really admire the work and craftsmanship that went into this volume.  The price for this lovely volume is remarkable as well.  I would think it would easily be sold for over $30.00.  I have been using it everyday since it arrived and plan on getting some of their other editions in the future. You can check their website to see which ones are currently available.   They sell-out quickly, so if there is something you like, I'd advise that you get it.  Some of them will be printed again, but which ones and how many is uncertain.