{{Short description|1827 series of poems by John Keble}} {{Italic title}} {{For|the cycle of liturgical seasons in Christian churches|Liturgical year}} {{More citations needed|date=April 2019}}
'''The Christian Year''' is a series of poems for all the Sundays and some other feasts of the [[liturgical year]] of the [[Church of England]] written by [[John Keble]] in 1827. The book is the source for several [[hymn]]s.
It was first published in 1827, and quickly became extremely popular. Though at first anonymous, its authorship soon became known, with the result that Keble was in 1831 appointed [[Oxford Professor of Poetry]], a post that he held until 1841.
In his book ''Heaven, Hell, and the Victorians'', Victorian scholar Michael Wheeler calls ''The Christian Year'' simply "the most popular volume of verse in the nineteenth century".<ref>Michael Wheeler, ''Heaven, Hell, and the Victorians'' (Cambridge University Press, 1994), p. 60.</ref> In his essay on "[[Tractarian]] Aesthetics and the [[Romantic Poetry|Romantic]] Tradition," Gregory Goodwin claims that ''The Christian Year'' is "Keble's greatest contribution to the [[Oxford Movement]] and to [[English literature]]." As evidence of that, Goodwin cites [[E. B. Pusey]]'s report that ninety-five editions of this [[devotional literature|devotional]] text were printed during Keble's lifetime, and "at the end of the year following his death, the number had arisen to a hundred-and-nine." By the time the copyright expired in 1873, over 375,000 copies had been sold in Britain and 158 editions had been published. Despite its widespread appeal among the [[Victorian era|Victorian]] readers, the popularity of Keble's ''The Christian Year'' quickly faded in the twentieth century.
==References== {{reflist}}
==External links== {{commons category|The Christian Year}} {{Wikisource}} * [http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4272 Full text of ''The Christian Year''] at [[Project Gutenberg]] * [https://ccel.org/ccel/keble/year Christian Year] at Christian Classics Ethereal Library
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[[Category:English Christian hymns]] [[Category:Christian devotional literature]] [[Category:1827 poems]] [[Category:19th-century Christian texts]] [[Category:1827 poetry books]] [[Category:Books about Christianity]] [[Category:Christian festivals and holy days]] [[Category:Liturgical calendar]] [[Category:Anglican liturgical books]]