She travelled to the most holy sites of the medieval world, including Rome and Jerusalem. She vividly describes her prayers and visions, as well as the temptations in daily life to which she succumbed before dedicating herself to her spiritual calling. Known as the earliest autobiography written in the English language, Kempe's Book describes the dramatic transformation of its heroine from failed businesswoman and lustful young wife to devout and chaste pilgrim. 1436-8) is the extraordinary account of a medieval wife, mother, and mystic.
'Alas that I ever did sin! It is so merry in Heaven!'
Simultaneously exasperating, endearing, vulnerable and eccentric, Margery Kempe, mother of fourteen children and wife to a bemused John Kempe, provides us with an autobiographical account of her own singular brand of affective piety - excessive weeping, lack of bodily control, compulsive travelling, visionary meditations - and the growth of what she regarded as an individual and privileged mystical relationship with Christ. A unique narrative of sin, sex and salvation, The Book of Margery Kempe comprises a text which has continued to perplex and fascinate contemporary audiences since its discovery in the library of an English country house in 1934.
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