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The Reformation · 1573–1582
The Book of the Foundations
Teresa of Ávila · 1515–1582
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What it is
An account of founding seventeen convents — the lawsuits, the bad roads, the hostile townspeople, the money, and the sisters who turned out to be impossible.
Why it lasted
The most practical book by any mystic, and a rare document of how religious institutions actually get built.
Where to read it
Public domain and free to read in full, though not held here. The archives below have it.
These open a search on each archive rather than a direct link, which is the honest way to point at an edition nobody here has checked line by line.
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