The Sinner's Guide

2016 Reprint of 1883 Edition. Louis of Granada was the favorite author of St. Teresa of Avila, St. John on the Cross, St. Francis de Sales and many others. Among the hundreds of eminent ascetical writers of Spain, Louis of Granada remains unsurpassed in the beauty and purity of his style, the solidity of his doctrine, and the popularity and influence of his writings. Besides ascetical theology, his published works treat of Scripture, dogma, ethics, biography, and history. He is best known, however, for his ascetical writings. The appreciation of their worth extended throughout Europe, and later to America, and their popularity still remains but little impaired after the passage of four hundred years. Nearly all of these works were translated into the various European languages and several into Turkish and Japanese. The best known of his ascetical writings, and the one that achieved the greatest measure of success, is "The Sinner's Guide." It is marked by a smooth, harmonious style of purest Spanish idiom which has merited for it the reputation of a classic, and by an unctuous eloquence that has made it a perennial source of religious inspiration. It has been most favorably compared with à Kempis's "Imitation of Christ."