author
John Keble
1792–1866
A gentle but influential Anglican priest and poet, he became one of the key voices behind the Oxford Movement. He is still widely remembered for The Christian Year, a book of poems and hymns that shaped devotional reading for generations.
2 Audiobooks
About the author
Born in Fairford, Gloucestershire, on April 25, 1792, John Keble was educated by his clergyman father before going up to Corpus Christi College, Oxford at a remarkably young age. He stood out as a brilliant scholar, later becoming a fellow and tutor, and was ordained in the Church of England.
Keble is best known as a leader of the Oxford Movement, a 19th-century revival within Anglicanism that called the Church back to older patterns of worship, doctrine, and spiritual life. His sermon National Apostasy, preached at Oxford in 1833, is often treated as one of the movement's starting points. Though he was an academic and theologian, his influence reached far beyond the university.
For many readers, his most lasting work is The Christian Year (1827), a collection of poems for the Sundays and feast days of the church calendar. Its quiet, reflective style made it one of the most beloved religious books of the Victorian age. Later in life he served for many years as vicar of Hursley in Hampshire, where he continued to write and minister until his death on March 29, 1866.