Discover the wisdom of this controversial theologian whose counsel and meditations have found a wide audience for more than three centuries. François Fénelon was a seventeenth-century French archbishop who rose to a position of influence in the court of Louis XIV. Amid the splendor and decadence of Versailles, Fénelon became a wise mentor to many members of the king’s court as well as to the controversial Madame Guyon. Later exiled from Versailles for political reasons, Fénelon set out to improve the lot of peasants of his diocese and to deepen the spiritual life of all with whom he came in contact. Until his death, he corresponded with those at court who had become his spiritual “children.” Twenty-first century Christians are rediscovering the wisdom of this spiritual thinker. Together with Pascal—who was an old man in Fenelon’s youth—he showed how it was possible to have devotion and faith in the Age of Enlightenment. He battled heresies, faced charges of heresy himself, and wrote masterful books of insight into the spiritual life. “Peter Gorday’s life of Fenelon is a gem. I recommend it to anyone with an interest in Fenelon or Christian mysticism in general.” –Dr. Chad Helms, Professor of Modern Foreign Languages, Presbyterian College, and editor of Fenelon: Selected Writings (Classics of Western Spirituality) “Gorday traces the complex situation in Fenelon’s time and the varying perspectives of his interpreters. He declares him not cunning but tough as a thinker. In this book, we get not only a fascinating story but also a subtle guide to self-examination.” -Dr. Eugene TeSelle, Emeritus, Vanderbilt Divinity School

François Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon, Archbishop of Cambrai (1651–1715) exerted a considerable influence on the development and spread of the Enlightenment. His most famous work, the Homeric novel Les Aventures de Télémaque, Fils d’Ulysse (1699), composed for the education of his pupil Duc de Bourgogne, was, after the Bible, the most widely read literary work in France throughout the eighteenth century. It was also translated and adapted into many other European languages. And yet oddly enough, the question as to why Fénelon’s ideas resonated over such a wide span of space and time has as yet found no coherent and comprehensive answer. By taking Fénelon’s intellectual influence as a matter of ‘cultural translation’, this anthology traces the reception of Fénelon and his multifaceted writings outside of France, and in doing so aims to enrich not only our understanding of the Enlightenment, but also of the thinker himself.

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