Evelyn Underhill 
The Cloud of Unknowing 

Evelyn Underhill (1875-1941) was a renowned Anglo-Catholic poet and novelist whose works on mysticism were some of the most widely read in the early twentieth century. She and her husband, Hubert Stuart Moore, had no children, but travelled extensively throughout Europe where Underhill pursued her interests in art and Catholicism. As a product of the Edwardian era, Underhill was concerned with exploring the physic, the occult, the mystical, the scientific, and the spiritual in her works. In her later years, she became a lecturer and spiritual leader in the Anglican Church, and proponent of the power of contemplative prayer. In 1922 Underhill edited an anonymous work of Christian mysticism called ‘The Cloud of Unknowing’. The work was written in the late 14th Century in Middle English, and is a treatise about seeking a pure entity of God through contemplation, not through knowledge and intellect. This version is often considered the best translation of the work to modern English.