The Life of St. Thérèse of Lisieux

This remarkable biography of Thérèse of Lisieux, one of the most popular Catholic saints of all time, was commissioned by her sister and religious superior and was the first published in English in 1928. Msgr. August Pierre Laveille was able to portray Thérèse, as well as her parents Zélie and Louis who were canonized in 2015, with exquisite detail, having interviewed those who knew them best.

When the autobiography of the life of Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul, was first published a year after her death in 1898, the response was immediate and overwhelming, with tens of thousands of copies of her book sold in just a few short months. It was decided that an official biography should be written from the documents that had been gathered on the life of Thérèse Martin, whose cause for canonization was taken up without the customary fifty year waiting period.

First published in French in 1925, the first English edition became available in 1928. This exhaustive record of the life of one of the most beloved of all Catholic saints includes biographical information about her parents and grandparents, her early years at home, her years in the cloister, her illness and death, and information about the miracles attributed to her after her death, when she made good the promise on her deathbed that she would "spend her heaven doing good on earth."

August Pierre Laveille (1856-1928), the vicar-general of Mieux, was commissioned by the Mother Prioress of the Carmel of Lisieux, St. Thérèse's biological sister Pauline, to write the official biography of the Little Flower. Msgr. Laveille also wrote several other popular biographies, including those of Belgian Cardinal Désiré Mercier and St. Louis de Montfort.