Thomas à Kempis (c 1380-1471) was a priest, monk and writer. He was born in Rhineland town of Kempen near Düsseldorf in Germany. The school he attended in neraby Holland had been started by the founder of the Brothers of the Common Life, a religious association. These were men devoted to prayer, simplicity and union with God. Thomas of Kempen, as he was known at school, was so impressed by his teachers that he decided to live his own life according to their ideals. When he was nineteen, he entered the monastery of Mount St. Agnes. He spent the rest of his long life behind the walls of that monastery. Thomas wrote a number of sermons, letters, hymns and information about the lives of saints. The most famous of his works by far is The Imitation of Christ, which has come to be, after the Bible, the most widely translated book in Christian literature.