John Norden - Devotional Writings

Devotional Writings

Norden frequently experienced difficulty in finding patronage for his cartographical and chorographical work. A steadier source of income was his devotional writing, of which he published twenty-four volumes between 1582 and his death. A Pensive Mans Practise, first published in 1584, reached more than forty editions in his lifetime.

He always kept the two areas of his professional life quite separate, and when in the late 1590s a series of dedications in his devotional works to the Earl of Essex placed him in political difficulties with Sir Robert Cecil he attempted to deny authorship, claiming that the devotional books were the work of a "another of my name ... Norden pretender". This denial has caused historians some difficulty, but Frank Kitchen has established beyond doubt that there was only one John Norden.