The Book of the Blessed Virgin—Volume 1: Mother of God

Edited by F. J. Sheed Few men had as much an influence upon the leading lights of twentieth-century Catholicism as did F. J. Sheed. Helmsman of Sheed & Ward, “the most influential Catholic publishers in the English-speaking world,” Sheed was friend or publisher (or often both) to G. K. Chesterton and Hilaire Belloc, Ronald Knox and Caryll Houselander, Evelyn Waugh and Christopher Dawson, and many others. Having this singular grace of familiarity with Catholic letters, in 1950 Sheed asked of himself: “Each of [our] books told some part of what is to be known about Our Lady extraordinarily well; if no one of them covered everything, among them they covered a great deal. How much did they cover?” The answer to that question: The Mary Book—represented after more than seventy years (in two volumes) as The Book of the Blessed Virgin. The angel said to her, Mary, do not be afraid; thou hast found favour in the sight of God. And behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and shalt bear a so