Catharine Of Siena: A Biography

by Josephine Butler

This scarce antiquarian book is a facsimile reprint of the original. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

364 pages, Paperback

First published October 27, 2009

About the author

Josephine Elizabeth Butler was a Victorian era British feminist and social reformer who was especially concerned with the welfare of prostitutes. Along with other charity efforts, she led the long campaign for the repeal of the Contagious Diseases Acts both in Britain and internationally from 1869 to 1886.

Reviews

[Petra]

Again, for research. An amusingly Victorian biography that claims to paint a truthful picture of Catherine of Siena but unsurprisingly stumbles upon the usual cliches when it comes to historical biographies of saints. Luckily there will be a lot to work on this in my thesis!

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

●The Story of Catharine of Siena by Florence Witts●

*book tagged isn't the book I read, but is the closest one I can find in order to review the book I read*

Once again, after seeing this antique book online I couldn't resist, especially because I already own one book in the Splendid Lives series (Oliver Cromwell).

I love these books because they're factual but not overly wordy, they've got lovely pictures and the formatting makes them easy to read and learn from. I hadn't previously known anything about Catharine of Siena, so I went into this book blindly.

I learnt a lot, and really liked seeing the life of Catharine, from her joyous personality as a child to her dedication to God. She was committed to her beliefs and went against the social norms and expectations despite being pressured by her family and the people around her. She even spent three years in solitude and refused pleasures in order to gain wisdom. She also was kind, and often went out to give things to the poor and sick without worry about her own wellbeing.

The city of Siena was beautifully described, my edition of the book is from the early 1900s so they're outdated, but still the matching pictures were wonderful to see.

The entire book is factual, but there are times when it really does depend on your views to perceive how things went, personally I don't believe in visions or higher powers, but nonetheless it was still interesting. Each chapter title has a brief summary as to what's to come which helps the reader understand more.

The ending has a small note from the author explaining the aftermath of Catharine's death at 33, and how her life affected many others. Overall, this was different from my usual reading genre, but was highly enjoyable.

4/5 🌟