The Book of Margery Kempe

Margery Kempe

jul 2005 · Penguin UK

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A remarkable medieval woman's life and the earliest surviving autobiography in English, now updated with new material

The story of the eventful life of Margery Kempe - medieval wife, mother, businesswoman, pilgrim and visionary - is the earliest surviving autobiography in English. Here Kempe recounts in vivid, unembarrassed detail the madness that followed the birth of the first of her fourteen children, the failure of her brewery business, her dramatic call to the spiritual life, her vow of chastity and pilgrimages to Europe and the Holy Land. Margery Kempe could not read or write, and dictated her story late in life: a remarkable portrait of a woman of unforgettable character and courage. This fully updated edition of Barry Windeatt's modern English translation includes a new introduction, notes and scholarly apparatus.

Translated with a new introduction by Barry Windeatt

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Margery Kempe, born c.1373, was of a well-to-do middle-class family from King's Lynn in Norfolk. Married at twenty, she had a vision of Christ following her first childbirth, and after early failures as a businesswoman, felt herself called to the spiritual life. At about the age of forty, after she had bore fourteen children, she persuaded her husband to a vow of chastity and began a pilgrimage across England, Europe and the Holy Land. She was a controversial figure and was often imprisoned and abused for her actions. Towards the end of her life she dictated an account of her travels and visions, which was discovered in 1934. It is the earliest example of an autobiography in English.