The complex poetry of Hopkins takes on the form of a camera lens through which the ‘dearest freshness’ of the natural world is seen, and the photographs of Fr Browne ‘flame out, like shining from shook foil’ as they seem to speak and become poetry.

Poems and photographs are accompanied by an accessible commentary by Hopkins’ scholar Sr Jo O’Donovan. She takes the reader through the story of Hopkins’ intellectual development and carefully explains the theological, and philosophical underpinning of his poetry.