Katherine von Bora: Dr. Martin Luther's Wife

Preface from the author:

It has been my purpose in Katharine von Bora: Dr. Martin Luther's Wife to picture in the peaceful quiet of his domestic happiness, the man whose influence so largely shaped the course of public events.

The undertaking has not been altogether an easy one; for, while history flows in a copious stream, regarding the Reformer himself, it gives but meager information as to the great man's wife - the humble, modest woman, who never thrust herself forward, not sought any personal advantage from her husband's greatness - but remained contentedly in the background, glad to do him service, and to enrich her own heart from the abundance of his spiritual riches. Only occasional fragments give us glimpses of Katharine's life, and out of those I will endeavor to form a completer picture.

The fact that Luther is so absorbing a personality, gives rise to a further difficulty - the biography of Katharine von Bora often insensibly becomes that of Luther himself; and the author pauses to ask himself: Am I writing of Katharine, or of Luther? I can only repeat, that is is my purpose, in this book, to paint Luther's domestic life, and therefore Dr. Martin, as the head of his household, may fitly play a leading part.

It has been my endeavor, so to utilize the material here gathered, that our people may learn to know the wife of its greatest man - not by name only, but as her husband's "helpmeet", in the truest sense of the word, as a pattern of domestic virtue, and as a pearl among women.

Sprinkle Publications, paperback, 292 pages.