The Story of a Soul

The Story of a Soul (l'Histoire d'une Âme) is the autobiography of Thérèse of Lisieux, a French Discalced Carmelite nun, later recognized as a saint. It was first published on September 30, 1898, a year to the day after her death from tuberculosis at the age of 24, on September 30, 1897. The book was a single volume formed from three distinct manuscripts - manuscripts of different length, written at different times, addressed to different people, and differing from one another in character. The work of unifying these disparate manuscripts was carried out by Pauline, the sister of Thérèse. It was initially published with a limited audience in mind, the Carmelite convents and certain religious personalities, and just 2000 copies of the 475 page book were printed. It quickly became a publishing phenomenon however and Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus was canonised in 1925.

Thérèse Martin was the youngest of nine children, of whom four entered the Carmelite convent in the Normandy town of Lisieux. She was known as the Little Flower, and her autobiography is also known as The Springtime History of a Little White Flower.

Manuscript A, entitled The Story of a Little White Flower, and dedicated to her sister Pauline, was written between the beginning of January 1895, and the 20 January 1896. Pauline has described how, as she sat with her sisters on a winter evening in the one room of Carmel where there was a fire, the writing of the first manuscript was decided. " One evening in the beginning of the year 1895, I was with my two sisters Marie and Thérèse. Sister Thérèse of the Child Jesus told me several happenings of her childhood and Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (my eldest sister Marie) said to me; 'O Mother, what a pity that all this should not be written down for us. If you were to ask Sister Thérèse to write down her childhood memories, how much pleasure this would give us!'..I turned to Sister Thérèse, who laughed as though we were teasing her, and said: 'I order you to write down your memories of your childhood.' "

Manuscript B is a letter to Sister Marie of the Sacred Heart (the eldest sister of Thérèse), and written at her request in three days between the 13 and 16 September 1896. Marie asked Thérèse to write down her spiritual discoveries, what Marie described as her little way of trust and love. Thérèse replied in ten closely written pages. "Her many corrections show that she wrote in great haste and in a state of extreme fatigue."

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