Writings of Edith Stein

Writings of Edith Stein by Edith Stein (St Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), translated, edited, and introduced by Hilda Graef, 199 pages

Edith Stein was born in 1891 into a German Jewish family, but she became an atheist at an early age.  She attended university and completed a doctorate in philosophy under the guidance of Edmund Husserl.  After reading a copy of the Life of St Teresa of Avila, Stein converted to Catholicism, and soon entered a Carmelite convent, taking the name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross.  Under orders from her superiors, she continued her philosophical studies.  After Kristallnacht, she was transferred to a convent in the Netherlands, but after the German conquest of that country she was arrested in her convent and sent to Auschwitz, where she was gassed upon arrival.

Writings of Edith Stein is a reader composed primarily of selections from longer works, with all the weaknesses that implies.  It is divided into three sections, beginning with the most accessible works, then presenting more difficult selections.  The devotional works she wrote for her fellow nuns are solid.  Her pedagogical works are intriguing, and the best part of this book.  The selections from her longer philosophical works are excellent but incredibly unsatisfying, since the fragments included in this work cannot do more than hint at the full meaning of the works from which they are taken.