Book excerpt: A collection of some of the most important writings by and about Catherine McAuley, founder of the Sisters of Mercy, including letters, memoirs, and annals written by many of the first Sisters of Mercy. Also here are the Venerable McAuley's original manuscript of the Rule and Constitutions of the order, critically edited for the first time. '... a scholarly book ... marks significant progress in that area of women's history which is concerned with the foundresses of women's religious orders ... an important seminal contribution to the study of Catherine McAuley' Sophie McGrath, Journal of Religious History.