Perilous Passages

This study will significantly further our interpretations of the unique autobiography of Margery Kempe, lay woman turned mystic and visionary. Following the manuscript from a Carthusian monastery through history, Chappell bridges the gaps in our understanding of the transmission of texts from the medieval past to the present.

"Chappell has written a concise and intellectually rewarding study of the manuscript, early printing, and reception history of The Book of Margery Kempe . . . this volume offers much new and worthwhile scholarly information. Summing Up: Highly Recommended." - CHOICE

"Julie Chappell has published scholarly texts, creative non-fiction, and poetry, and it is her ease in all three styles that makes Perilous Passages a pleasure to read. While thoroughly documenting each step of her research, she pays attention to pace and pauses for emphasis, summing up the pertinent details, inserting anecdotes about the more colorful characters whose lives were touched, sometimes unknowingly, by Margery Kempe's Book." - Medievally Speaking

"Chappell's Perilous Passages relates the complex, almost miraculous, survival of the single text of The Book of Margery Kempe to the story of Kempe's own life, the 'palimpsest' of her own spiritual awakening and the claiming of her spiritual voice. This carefully researched and intellectually imaginative book will be of interest to scholars of medieval Christianity in many fields, from material culture to women's studies, to theology." - E. Ann Matter, William R. Kenan, Jr. Professor and Professor of Religious Studies, University of Pennsylvania, USA

"Perilous Passages makes a fascinating and unique contribution to the study of Margery Kempe and her Book. Flawlessly researched, engagingly written and richly detailed, it carries readers on the many physical migrations of Kempe's manuscript through turbulent English Catholic history, while arguing that Kempe's purpose was to embody her own spiritual journey in textual form." - Amanda L. Capern, University of Hull, UK

Julie A. Chappell is Professor of English at Tarleton State University, USA.