SOURCE: Marks, Carol L. “General Introduction.” In Christian Ethicks, edited by George Robert Guffey, pp. xi-l. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1968.

In the following essay, Marks provides an overview of Traherne's works, topics, and philosophical mindset.

The student of Traherne's thought is fortunate in the abundance of both manuscript and printed works. In the latter category appear not only the Centuries, Poems, and Thanksgivings, edited by H. M. Margoliouth, but also Christian Ethicks (1675) [CE], Roman Forgeries (1673), and the Meditations on the Six Days of the Creation (1717).¹ Five manuscripts include a large amount of unpublished writings. One, discovered in 1964 by James M. Osborn, consists of Select Meditations [SM] of the sort contained in the Centuries.² [C] In his introduction (I, xii-xiv, xvii-xxii) Dr. Margoliouth describes three of the four other manuscripts (all three in the Bodleian Library, Oxford): the Commonplace Book, which forms the largest part of the so-called Dobell...