Perilous Passages: The Book of Margery Kempe, 1534-1934 (The New Middle Ages)

On December 27, 1934, the American scholar Hope Emily Allen announced in The Times the reappearance of a late medieval manuscript called The Book of Margery Kempe. Perilous Passages: The Book of Margery Kempe, 1534-1934 explores the various paths by which this late medieval manuscript made its way out of a monastery in Yorkshire during Henry VIII's religious reformation to the home of a family of deep English and Catholic roots in the twentieth century. Julie A. Chappell reveals new evidence that implicates the Carthusians as conscious preservers of this manuscript between 1534 and 1537 and significantly furthers our understanding of the ways in which the unique autobiography of Margery Kempe, lay woman turned mystic and visionary, was interpreted. Most importantly, this fascinating study bridges the gaps in our understanding of the transmission of texts from the medieval past to the present.