In His Steps

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**Title** **In His Steps**

Author	Charles Monroe Sheldon
Country	The United States of America
Language	English
Genre(s)	Christian Socialism
Publisher	Chicago Advance^[1]
Released	1896
ISBN	ISBN 0-8007-8608-4

In His Steps is a best-selling book written by Charles Monroe Sheldon. First published in 1896, the book has sold more than 30,000,000 copies, which ranks as the ninth best-selling book of all time, along with Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls. The full title of the book is: In His Steps: "What Would Jesus Do?".

Though variations of the secondary title "What would Jesus do" have been used by Christians for centuries as a form of imitatio dei, the imitation of God, it gained much greater currency following Charles Sheldon's 1896 book.

Chicago Advance, the original publisher, failed to register the copyright in the proper form. Other publishers took advantage of this fact publishing the book without paying the author any royalties. Thus lower prices and multiple publishers led to larger sales,

ISBN 0-8007-8608-4 (paperback)

ISBN 0-88486-219-4 (hardcover)

[edit] References

The Top Ten of Everything 2002, Russell Ash, Bestselling Books of All Time, pg. 109.

[edit] Notes

^ jr-miller.com:Online Edition of In His Steps from the Project Gutenberg at the J.R. Miller Archive; Retrieved on the 19^th of November, 2006.

Eleven years before Sheldon wrote his version of "In His Steps" James Russell Miller (1849 - 1912) wrote a 112 page pocket-size booklet targeted at young Christians also called "In His Steps". This booklet was published by the Trustees of the Presbyterian Board of Publication and Sabbath School Work in 1885 and a substantially revised edition was issued in 1897. There is no record readily available as to whether the two authors or publishing houses corresponded. The complete text of Miller's In His Steps is online at JR Miller Archive.