Of St John of the Cross' poetry it has been said, 'its form is as elegant and exquisite, as plastic and highly figured as any of the finest works of the Renaissance'. The same cannot be said of his prose. Uneven in quality, it rises at times to heights of beauty and precision only to lapse into repetitions, long unwieldy sentences, and obscurity. Fr silverio of st Teresa remarked in his Introduction to the works of St John of the Cross that, 'like other didactic prose of the period it would be notably improved if its volume were cut down by one third.' This book presents such an abbreviated, simplified, and, we hope, clarified version for easier reading, especially for beginners. It is intended that the reading of this text will lead on to a deeper study of the original, complete work available in the excellent translations of Allison Peers, Kieran Kavanaugh o.c.d. and others. The poem 'In the Darkness of the Night' has been re-translated with an eye to accuracy and 'the beauty and burning passion of the verses'.