An imprint of Encounter Press
The recovered devotional classics of Encounter Press
“I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places.” Isaiah 45:3
Some books are lost the ordinary way — out of print, out of mind. Others are buried deeper: locked in languages English readers never learned, asleep in archives no one thought to open, or — in one case — handed to a prior with instructions to burn every page.
We go looking for these.
Encounter Classics hunts the libraries of other centuries and other tongues for the writings of men and women who walked unusually close to God — writers who carried a certain weight of God onto the page. The old Hebrew word for glory means, literally, weight. You can feel it in these books. When we find one, we bring it home to the modern English reader: faithfully translated, honestly annotated, alive again.
Recovered. Translated. Rekindled.
The newest recovery
The Fiery Soliloquy of Gerlac Petersen
This book was supposed to be ashes.
In November of 1411, in a priory near Zwolle, a young canon lay dying. He was thirty-three years old, half blind, and on fire with God. In his cell lay everything he had ever written — prayers, confessions, cries of love set down on loose leaves, for no eyes but God's. He asked his prior to burn them all.
The prior refused.
The rescued pages became one of the most beloved devotional books of the late Middle Ages. Printed at Cologne in 1616, its title page made a claim bold enough to stop a reader cold: Alter Thomas de Kempis — “a second Thomas à Kempis.” For generations it was treasured beside the Imitation of Christ itself; the censor who approved it wrote that it “inflames souls like little sparks.” Then it faded from the shelves and waited in Latin — never once given to readers in the English of our own day.
Until now.
Gerlac Petersen was not writing a book. He was talking to God. His brethren remembered how, walking with them at the edge of town, he would sometimes stop, and excuse himself with a single sentence that has followed him down six centuries:
“Brethren, I must return to my cell, for there is One who awaits me there.”
What he said to the One who awaited him is this book. Nothing in it was written to impress you. Every line was written to reach God — and it did, and it still does. To read him is to be lent one man's private conversation with God, with a standing invitation to stop eavesdropping at any line you choose, and begin to speak yourself.
“As from eternity Thou hast loved Thyself, so from eternity Thou hast loved me.”
The first modern English translation, rendered directly from the Latin of the 1616 Cologne edition and weighed, sentence by sentence, against every rendering that has gone before. With the story of Gerlac's remarkable life, drawn from the Windesheim Chronicle — the half-blind eyes, the friend who hand-copied choir books so he could sing, the fire that was refused. A brief guide, How to Read Gerlac, prepares you for his boldest sentences before you meet them. Thirty-nine short chapters, each named for the hungry heart — Prayer in the Dark. Iron in the Fire. Face to Face. The Unburdened Heart — one chapter to a morning. A glossary keeps his luminous vocabulary; endnotes trace the Scriptures and church fathers standing guard behind his most daring lines.
If you have tasted enough of God to know there is more — if you are hungry for the walk with Him that the old saints seemed to know — this book was saved from the fire for you. Readers of Brother Lawrence, Thomas à Kempis, and Gerhard Tersteegen will recognize the country at once.
A volume in the Encounter Classics series — the recovered devotional classics of Encounter Press.
The door stands open. A light is burning inside.
Paperback · Hardcover · eBook | 196 pages | ISBN 978-1-971776-20-0 (paperback) · 978-1-971776-21-7 (hardcover) · 978-1-971776-22-4 (eBook)
The collection so far
The Life and Writings of Gerhard Tersteegen
The recoveryLocked in rare nineteenth-century volumes — gathered, modernized, and completed as the most comprehensive English collection of Tersteegen in nearly 200 years.
Biography, pastoral letters, theological treatises, sermons, and hymns — the fullest English gathering of Tersteegen's writings in nearly two centuries. 438 pages.
★★★★★
Gerhard Tersteegen's Classic Devotional
The recoveryNearly three hundred years at German bedsides, yet English readers only ever saw fragments. This is the first complete translation.
The devotional that shaped German-speaking Christian piety for nearly three hundred years — poems, meditations, hymns, devotions, and maxims — now complete in English for the first time.
★★★★★
Letters and Writings of Jean de Bernières
The recoveryHis original letters were never gathered in full until dom Éric de Reviers' 2025 critical edition — and never in English until now.
The first English translation of Bernières' original letters, rendered from the critical edition prepared by dom Éric de Reviers, with a biography and commentary. 272 pages.
★★★★★
Rebecca Ruter Springer's Beloved Vision of Heaven
The recoveryNever lost, only worn: a century of bare reprints, renewed here gently modernized, annotated, and anchored to Scripture.
The vivid 1898 account of heaven that has comforted grieving readers for over a century, newly annotated with biblical cross-references and historical context. 176 pages.
★★★★★
Our standards
Every translation is rendered from the original-language editions — Latin, German, French — and weighed against every rendering that has gone before it.
Endnotes trace the Scriptures and church fathers behind the boldest lines. Glossaries keep each writer's own vocabulary. Biographies are drawn from primary chronicles.
Short chapters, readers' guides, and clean modern English — built for a morning's reading, not a scholar's shelf, without ever cheapening the original.
“First English translation” only when it is true. Ratings shown only as they stand on Amazon. Dates and lives verified before we print them.
The translator
Encounter Classics is edited and translated by Jarred Fenlason, D.Min., founder of Encounter Press — an independent Christian publisher devoted to spiritual formation, contemplative prayer, and the recovered voices of men and women who knew God closely. His translation work includes the complete letters of Gerhard Tersteegen, published free at gerhardtersteegen.com.
Encounter Classics is the classics imprint of Encounter Press. Each recovered volume has a full book page there, alongside original works on faith and discipleship.