This is the nadir of literature having to do with the saints. The stories are pure fantasies by some early followers of St . Francis. You won't learn anything here about St. Francis but will learn something about how free some individuals feel to manufacture tales out of thin air and then pass it along as fact. This has been in print for centuries, inexplicably. That I used to know people who accepted this book as history is even more amazing. St. Francis is wonderful enough without needing nonsense like this to bolster his reputation.

Living in an age of weights, measures, logic and reason, a pragmatist may see little reason in reading The Little Flowers of St. Francis of Assisi. However, recent terrorist attacks draws me and--most likely-many of us away from the methodical.

Vintage Spiritual Classics provides us with a preface and introduction of Francis Bernardone, showing us why he needed to become so close to God. They, the preface and introduction, explain this need on a level we may all understand. St. Francis wanted ecstasy and a life not burdened with want, greed, lust and avarice.

Each snippet throughout the body of the book provides a theme, an adventure and a moral that will pull the reader from this world to St. Francis's. Teaching us temperance, piety, and selfless rewards for good deeds and prayer.

I am hopeful that this book and others provided by Vintage will help provide solace and peace to those affected by the recent, tragic events.

One doesn't have to be Catholic to enjoy these amusing tales about the life of St. Francis, collected by a slightly later church writer. It's no wonder this gentle soul is among the most beloved figures in Christianity.

In general, we human beings will do nearly anything in response to our spiritual teachers - except pay attention to what they do and say. Brother Francis, like his master Jesus of Nazareth, is a perfect example. We have made Francis a saint, built a basilica to house his body, and have sentimentalized him into a quaint animal-lover, a medieval nature mystic, or a proto-flower child. We've even sold his image (in the form of concrete garden ornaments) around the world - but listen to him? We'd much rather create a Francis we can live with: one that edifies and amuses, without disturbing how we live our lives.

Chistopher Bobin's book is the latest development of this fine, old tradition. Here, the historical Francis is so submerged by a tidal wave of literary rhapsody and fine writing that he would scarcely recognize himself were he to read the book by some miracle. He will be scarcely more recognizable to those of you who know the historical sources - and this is the heart of my criticism. Bobin's treatment of the Francis stories is cavalier and irresponsible. Many events and episodes essential for understanding him are omitted and those included are edited freely to serve the author's purposes, which are purely literary, not biographical, historical, or religious. Worse, the author adds much nonsense that cannot be countenanced by anything we know about the real Francis. The result is a false portait of the Poverello that leaves out nearly everything that is puzzling, inconvenient, and challenging for a modern audience, and includes much that is misleading. Playing so fast and loose with the facts may be acceptable in the realm of creative literature, but it is it a major disservice to Francis himself, for whom the truth ALWAYS mattered, and for those of us who wish to get to know him.

If you want to learn more about St. Francis of Assisi, look somewhere else. If you want to have your heart lightened and gain a wonderful new perspective on God and His relationship to His creation, this book is a great source. It's worth buying just for the description of the Bible in the first chapter.

This book is a meditation from start to finish and should not be misconstrued as a biography, but if you aapproach it without expectations, it will lead you through a wonderful wandering.

This is an amazing book that sparked a wonderful peace deep within me. I would describe this book as an epiphany between two covers. It is written in the style and beauty of a poem that speaks very deeply to the soul. Do not by this book if you are looking for a historical account of the life of st. francis. This book is a meditation. Do not read this book with a critical heart, the truth it speaks of isn't historical it's spiritual.

The book, Celebrating Commi=on Prayer by the Society of St. Frances, which is available through the UK division of Amazon.com when no longer available at the U.S. division. I have at present one copy left and there are several copies that I've donated to the Mission To Seamen in Pusan S.Korea. It is excellent for group prayer sessions. By following the simple format you are guided through a prayer session so that it is kept well organized. About the only thing I would add is a section on conversatinal prayer which is lacking in most group prayer guides. This is however one of the best I've foundd.

Sir Richard Burton--master explorer, linguist, and scholar. He is known as the man who brought the Arabian Nights to the English speaking world, and is credited with being partially responsible for the discovery of the source of the Nile. He infiltrated the sacred cities of Medina and Mecca, disguised as an Arab.
So what prompted him to go to Salt Lake City? Burton was at a very difficult stage of his life, and needed a sort of vacation. Plus, according to him, he wanted to "see the Mormons." Some say he was interested in seeing their system of polygamy firsthand, some that he loved to visit sacred cities (having been to Mecca, Medina, Harar, and Damascus). Whatever the reason, he fortunately documented his trip, and we are left with this wonderful look, from an outsider, at "The City of the Saints."
One of the things that makes Burton so great is his absolute objectivity. His account of his visit among the Mormons is no exception. He went, he saw the facts, and he formed his opinions, just as everyone else. What set him apart, though, was that he managed to recount his adventure without the taint of his own bias.
Another great quality of Burton's was his incomparable eye for detail. He noticed everything, and took great pains to discover the history of everything he encountered. The result is a wonderfully rich account full of history and culture that Burton gives us as no other man could.
This is considered to be one of Burton's best books, though it is little known. It is by far the best non-Mormon account of early Salt Lake City that I've ever encountered. Its only flaw is that it is a little drawn out in places, but for the most part, this is a wonderfully detailed account and well worth the read.

The book is chock full of information, theology and philosophy.
I especially enjoyed the footnotes which are placed with the text rather than being at the bak of the book.

Francis was complex and this is a complex read.

Clearly David Burr is a great scholar--he has spent his life immersed in the controversies of the Franciscan order after St. Francis' death, and now he gives us his conclusions--rather nice of him, in my opinion, as it saves me a lot of work. The main point seems to be that fights over poverty were secondary to fights over the Pope's right to control. Poverty became the flashpoint issue because Olivi wrote that the Pope did not have the right to countermand the vow of poverty. David Burr points out that Olivi had not really said anything new on this point, but that Olivi did spend rather a lot of time discussing what one should do if the Pope gave you an order that went against the vow--as if he thought the Pope might do it; which he did, given that he expected the virtuous church (Franciscan spirituals) to go up agains the carnal church (Church of Rome) in a great battle that would inaugurate the Third Age. Burr gets the power politics right, and introduces us to the people caught up in its whirlwind, and to the moral choices they had to make. (I might add, to ALL the people, which does get rather tedious at times, but does justice to Ubertino of Casale).

Regis Armstrong, O.F.M. Cap., applies his extensive scholarly knowledge of Franciscan primary sources to produce a readable introduction for the layperson. Includes many new translations by Armstrong. Book is organized as a commentary with excerpts from Francis's writings interspersed throughout. The book has no index -- a major flaw which makes the book far less usable than it should be.

This book contains the two lives of Saint Francis as written by Thomas of Celano. The two lives were written within twenty years following the death of Saint Francis and so represent a first-hand account of the his life written by one of his early followers. The translation of the original latin was done by a Franciscan, Placid Hermann. This is necessary reading if you are seriously studying his life.

St. Francis is someone everyone should know. He is a great mystic and peaceful saint and person. So get this great book if you haven't read about St. Francis.

This book is as true as St. Bonaventure's original book but so much more readable. The book stays true to the life of St. Francis and therefore, it is a great and enjoyable read.

The author writes of Francis's history, journeys, miracles, preaching, meditation, stigmata and death. The book is very readable and full of postscripts and notes to support the historical truth of St. Francis's life.

I rated this book 4 stars because it is not complete without another very unique book titled "Simple Peace : The Spiritual Life of St. Francis of Assisi". But, Simple Peace is not complete unless you read a historical account like this book, so read Thomas Celeno's book first, then search for Simple Peace.

G.K. Chesterton is one of the most interesting people who ever lived. His prodigious output and outlandish appearance have made him an unforgettable part of Western culture. But in this book, we have the eccentric Chesterton writing about the even more astounding character of St. Francis of Assisi. Chesterton goes through several interesting sketches of St. Francis' life (which are interesting by themselves) and then draws all sorts of fantastic conclusions from the episodes. I strongly recommend this book to anyone who is curious about Chesterton's writing and Francis' life.

G.K. Chesterton's "St. Francis of Assisi" is not your conventional timeline of the events in a man's life. Instead, Chesterton focuses on Francis' relationship with God and his historical context, background and impact. I first read this book a year ago and have just read it again - it's one of those books that are so rich that you discover something new each time you pick it up. If you've ever read "The Little Flowers of St. Francis" (about the events in Francis' life), this is the book to read next. It is a great aid to understanding Francis as a person and not just as "the bird bath saint". I highly recommend this book.

The first time I read this book, I felt almost as impatient with Chesterton's "verbosity" and "hot air" as some of the reviewers below. In regard to the bare facts of Francis' life, one comes to feel a bit as Chesterton said of the Troubadours' lovers: "The reader realises that the lady is the most beautiful being that can possibly exist, only he has occasional doubts as to whether she does exist." Moments came when I found myself thirsting for dry facts. But I think the problem is that Chesterton assumes his readers, as educated persons of his period, know the story already, and only need to be enlightened as to its meaning. One can get facts anywhere. Few can take us inside the thinking of a man like Francis. And absolutely no one I know writes with such entertaining flair, of a healing kind so different from modern books and movies that wound our souls with their pleasures.

On second reading, I find I enjoyed this episode about as much as the biography of Dickens -- which was very much. Chesterton looks at Francis, in varying cadences, from the inside, to help us think and feel as he did, then from the outside, as children of the Enlightenment, a two-perspective approach that gives us a rounded figure. Those of us who have no other knowledge of Francis may sometimes wonder how much of that figure is Francis and how much Chesterton, (who was, after all, probably the more rounded of the two). But the insights are always brilliant. And many still cut like daggers. (Or rather scalpels, to heal.) "We read that Admiral Bangs has been shot, which is the first intimation we have that he has ever been born." "The moment sex ceases to be a servant it becomes a tyrant." "All goods look better when they look like gifts." "There is only one intelligent reason why a man does not believe in miracles and that is that he does believe in materialism." Anyone who finds such digressions merely "hot air," would be best advised to keep to dry-as-dust historical commentaries, or skeptical comic books, as the case may be.

This book is not so much a biography of a single man, as an episode in Chesterton's ongoing spiritual biography of mankind. It is one in a series of what Solzhenitsyn called "knots" and Thomas Cahill calls "hinges" of history. The series continues with Chesterton's equally subjective but enlightening biographies of Chaucer, Dickens, Joan of Arc, and modern "Heretics." He gives the outline of the project in the Everlasting Man, which is one of the most brilliant and wisest books of the century.

As a non-Catholic Christian ("Protestant" would place the emphasis in the wrong place), I don't agree with Chesterton's take on the Albigensian Wars, and am more ambivalent about the Crusades than he. But he does not exactly justify the Inquisition, as the reader below implies; he admits that in later stages it was a "horrible thing that might be haunted by demons." How many modern leftists admitted that much about, say, the Russian Revolution? But I agree he may try to "understand" the sins committed by his side a little too hard.

author, Jesus and the Religions of Man (July 2000)

d.marshall@sun.ac.jp