Prayers or Meditations

Prayers or Meditations, written in 1545 by the English queen Catherine Parr, was the first book published in England by a woman under her own name and in the English language. It first appeared in print on 8 June 1545. Preceded in the previous year by her anonymously published Psalms or Prayers, the 60-page book consisted of vernacular texts selected and assembled by the Queen for personal devotion. It is based on the much longer 15th-century Catholic devotional book by Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, but reoriented for the purposes of the developing Church of England.