Before undertaking many of her better known expository works on mysticism, she first published a small book of satirical poems on legal dilemmas, The Bar-Lamb's Ballad Book, which received a favorable welcome.
 Underhill then wrote three highly unconventional though profoundly spiritual novels.
 Like Charles Williams and later, Susan Howatch, Underhill uses her narratives to explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual.
 She then uses that sacramental framework very effectively to illustrate the unfolding of a human drama.
 Her novels are entitled The Grey World (1904), The Lost Word (1907), and The Column of Dust (1909).
 In her first novel, The Grey World, described by one reviewer as an extremely interesting psychological study, the hero's mystical journey begins with death, and then moves through reincarnation, beyond the grey world, and into the choice of a simple life devoted to beauty, reflecting Underhill's own serious perspective as a young woman.

It seems so much easier in these days to live morally than to live beautifully.
 Lots of us manage to exist for years without ever sinning against society, but we sin against loveliness every hour of the day.

The Lost Word and The Column of Dust are also concerned with the problem of living in two worlds and reflect the writer's own spiritual challenges.
In the 1909 novel, her heroine encounters a rift in the solid stuff of her universe:
She had seen, abruptly, the insecurity of those defences which protect our illusions and ward off the horrors of truth.
She had found a little hole in the wall of appearances; and peeping through, had caught a glimpse of that seething pot of spiritual forces whence, now and then, a bubble rises to the surface of things.

Underhill's novels suggest that perhaps for the mystic, two worlds may be better than one.
For her, mystical experience seems inseparable from some kind of enhancement of consciousness or expansion of perceptual and aesthetic horizons—to see things as they are, in their meanness and insignificance when viewed in opposition to the divine reality, but in their luminosity and grandeur when seen bathed in divine radiance.
But at this stage the mystic's mind is subject to fear and insecurity, its powers undeveloped.
The first novel takes us only to this point.
Further stages demand suffering, because mysticism is more than merely vision or cultivating a latent potentiality of the soul in cosy isolation.
According to Underhill's view, the subsequent pain and tension, and final loss of the private painful ego-centered life for the sake of regaining one's true self, has little to do with the first beatific vision.
Her two later novels are built on the ideal of total self-surrender even to the apparent sacrifice of the vision itself, as necessary for the fullest possible integration of human life.
This was for her the equivalent of working out within, the metaphorical intent of the life story of Jesus.
One is reunited with the original vision—no longer as mere spectator but as part of it.
This dimension of self-loss and resurrection is worked out in The Lost Word, but there is some doubt as to its general inevitability.
In The Column of Dust, the heroine's physical death reinforces dramatically the mystical death to which she has already surrendered.
Two lives are better than one but only on the condition that a process of painful re-integration intervenes to re-establish unity between Self and Reality.

All her characters derive their interest from the theological meaning and value which they represent, and it is her ingenious handling of so much difficult symbolic material that makes her work psychologically interesting as a forerunner of such 20th-century writers as Susan Howatch, whose successful novels also embody the psychological value of religious metaphor and the traditions of Christian mysticism.
Her first novel received critical acclaim, but her last was generally derided.
However, her novels give remarkable insight into what we may assume was her decision to avoid what St. Augustine describe
Before undertaking many of her better known expository works on mysticism, she first published a small book of satirical poems on legal dilemmas, The Bar-Lamb's Ballad Book, which received a favorable welcome.  Underhill then wrote three highly unconventional though profoundly spiritual novels.  Like Charles Williams and later, Susan Howatch, Underhill uses her narratives to explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual.  She then uses that sacramental framework very effectively to illustrate the unfolding of a human drama.  Her novels are entitled The Grey World (1904), The Lost Word (1907), and The Column of Dust (1909).  In her first novel, The Grey World, described by one reviewer as an extremely interesting psychological study, the hero's mystical journey begins with death, and then moves through reincarnation, beyond the grey world, and into the choice of a simple life devoted to beauty, reflecting Underhill's own serious perspective as a young woman.
It seems so much easier in these days to live morally than to live beautifully.  Lots of us manage to exist for years without ever sinning against society, but we sin against loveliness every hour of the day.
The Lost Word and The Column of Dust are also concerned with the problem of living in two worlds and reflect the writer's own spiritual challenges. In the 1909 novel, her heroine encounters a rift in the solid stuff of her universe:
She had seen, abruptly, the insecurity of those defences which protect our illusions and ward off the horrors of truth. She had found a little hole in the wall of appearances; and peeping through, had caught a glimpse of that seething pot of spiritual forces whence, now and then, a bubble rises to the surface of things.
Underhill's novels suggest that perhaps for the mystic, two worlds may be better than one. For her, mystical experience seems inseparable from some kind of enhancement of consciousness or expansion of perceptual and aesthetic horizons—to see things as they are, in their meanness and insignificance when viewed in opposition to the divine reality, but in their luminosity and grandeur when seen bathed in divine radiance. But at this stage the mystic's mind is subject to fear and insecurity, its powers undeveloped. The first novel takes us only to this point. Further stages demand suffering, because mysticism is more than merely vision or cultivating a latent potentiality of the soul in cosy isolation. According to Underhill's view, the subsequent pain and tension, and final loss of the private painful ego-centered life for the sake of regaining one's true self, has little to do with the first beatific vision. Her two later novels are built on the ideal of total self-surrender even to the apparent sacrifice of the vision itself, as necessary for the fullest possible integration of human life. This was for her the equivalent of working out within, the metaphorical intent of the life story of Jesus. One is reunited with the original vision—no longer as mere spectator but as part of it. This dimension of self-loss and resurrection is worked out in The Lost Word, but there is some doubt as to its general inevitability. In The Column of Dust, the heroine's physical death reinforces dramatically the mystical death to which she has already surrendered. Two lives are better than one but only on the condition that a process of painful re-integration intervenes to re-establish unity between Self and Reality.
All her characters derive their interest from the theological meaning and value which they represent, and it is her ingenious handling of so much difficult symbolic material that makes her work psychologically interesting as a forerunner of such 20th-century writers as Susan Howatch, whose successful novels also embody the psychological value of religious metaphor and the traditions of Christian mysticism. Her first novel received critical acclaim, but her last was generally derided. However, her novels give remarkable insight into what we may assume was her decision to avoid what St. Augustine describe
Evelyn Underhill