Evelyn Underhill was born on 6 December 1875, the daughter of a well-to-do barrister. In 1907 she married a childhood friend, Herbert Stuart Moore, who was, like her father, a barrister. As a young woman she travelled extensively in Europe with her mother, and later with her husband Hubert. On her travels she made a point of visiting churches and absorbing their atmosphere, whilst remaining uncommitted at home. The call of the spiritual life grew stronger for her, though, and, through her own spiritual quest, she began to write about spirituality and mysticism, publishing Mysticism in 1911, an instant success, and the major work of her earlier period.

She gradually grew more committed to the institutional Church and became a regular worshipper in the Church of England, the church in which she grew up. She published several more works on mystics, mysticism and the spiritual life, as well as contributing reviews and articles to several periodicals, giving lectures, and leading retreats. Her retreat work began in 1924, and her books of retreat notes (a dozen have now been published) are perhaps the most profound and instructive of her writings.

As her faith became more incarnational Evelyn studied the Church as an institution alongside her studies of the mystics as individuals. Her interest in the worship of the Church also grew, and this resulted in the major work of her later years, Worship (1936), a book covering the whole range of Christian worship in a brief compass, with insight, understanding, and sympathy for the different traditions. It is still, over half a century later, a recommended book in theological colleges.

Evelyn Underhill died on 15 June 1941, and she is remembered on this day each year in the calendar of the Church of England.

Collect

Almighty God, who enlightened your Church
by the teaching of your servant Evelyn Underhill:
enrich it evermore with your heavenly grace
and raise up faithful witnesses who,
by their life and teaching,
may proclaim the truth of your salvation;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

from 'Common Worship' (Church of England)