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Four Birds of Noah's Ark: A Prayer Book from the Time of Shakespeare

Four Birds of Noah's Ark: A Prayer Book from the Time of Shakespeare

by Robert Hudson (Author), Thomas Dekker (Author)

  • New

    Paperback 2017

    $20.10
Synopsis

A timeless, little-known literary classic. As the Black Death ravaged London in 1608, the theatres closed, many people moved out of town for safety, and playwrights scrambled to find other outlets for their talent. While Shakespeare retreated to his hometown of Stratford, Thomas Dekker wrote Four Birds of Noah's Ark, a book containing fifty-six prayers for the people of London and all of England. Dekker's prayers bear witness to his deep faith and profound understanding of human psychology with a power and poignancy that few written prayers in English literature achieve. Bringing this devotional classic back into print for the first time since 1924, editor Robert Hudson has included a fine introduction, annotated the prayers, and modernised the language without sacrificing any of its beauty and simplicity. This lovely book at once surprises and enchants with its literary voice, devotional heart, and accessible writing.

$20.10

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10 in stock

More Information

Format: Paperback
 Pages: 174
 Edition: Annotated
 Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co.
Published: 30 Nov 2017
ISBN 10: 0802874819
ISBN 13: 9780802874818

Media Reviews
Karen Swallow Prior
-- author of Booked: Literature in the Soul of Me
In an age of extemporaneous prayers, it is instructive and delightful to read prayers created within the word-rich age of the English Reformation and wrought with such care. Beautifully crafted, filled with human goodness and biblical truth, these are more than prayers: they are meditations, devotions, and little lessons on what it means to be human and utterly dependent upon God. This is a volume I will return to again and again.

Carol Zaleski
-- coauthor of Prayer: A History and The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings
Happy the reader who discovers this prayer book by Thomas Dekker, the Elizabethan playwright who probably spent more time in debtors' prison than in church but learned from both how to read the human heart. Dekker's prayers for children, mothers, laborers, rulers, prisoners, sailors, miners, plague sufferers, reformed rogues, and all who hope for redemption--gently modernized and engagingly introduced by Robert Hudson--make a rich collection of praise, petition, lament, and thanksgiving wrapped up in an irresistible wit.

John Wilson
-- founding editor of Education & Culture
Robert Hudson has discovered the literary equivalent of buried treasure--in this case, lying hidden in plain sight--and brought it to light for our instruction and delight. Many thanks!

Jill Pelaez Baumgaertner
-- Wheaton College
Even though Thomas Dekker lived four hundred years ago, the prayers he wrote in this compelling collection strongly resonate with twenty-first-century life and concerns, even while presenting vivid pictures of lives and times remote from our own. . . . Out of print for almost a century, Four Birds of Noah's Ark is a jewel that will not be hidden any longer.

Scott Cairns
-- author of The End of Suffering: Finding Purpose in Pain and Slow Pilgrim: The Collected Poems
By bringing back into view the curious Thomas Dekker and his practice of prayer, Robert Hudson has recovered and has made manifest for us a great treasure. Dekker's prayer life is one duly understood as a path proceeding from grace to grace; the journey is as freeing of the soul as it is efficacious in enhancing the uncommon intimacy--the increasing unity--between the one who prays and the one who hears the prayer. May this book be blessed.
Author Bio
Thomas Dekker (1572-1632) was a prolific writer whose works include The Shoemaker's Holiday and The Gull's Hornbook.