This is a brilliant biography of Joan of Arc, telling the story in a new and fresh way

Joan of Arc. A History
By Helen Castor
Faber & Faber 2014
ISBN-10: 0571284620
ISBN-13: 978-0571284627

ABSTRACT:

Helen Castor brings us afresh a gripping life of Joan of Arc. Instead of the icon, she gives us a living, breathing young woman; a roaring girl fighting the English, and taking sides in a bloody civil war that was tearing fifteenth century France apart.

Here is a portrait of a 19-year-old peasant who hears voices from God; a teenager transformed into a warrior leading an army to victory, in an age that believed women should not fight. And it is also the story behind the myth we all know, a myth which began to take hold at her trial: that of the Maid of Orleans, the saviour of France, a young woman burned at the stake as a heretic, a woman who five hundred years later would be declared a saint.

Joan and her world are brought vividly to life in this refreshing new take on the medieval world. Helen Castor brings us to the heart of the action, to a woman and a country in turmoil, a world where no-one – not Joan herself, nor the people around her, princes, bishops, soldiers or peasants – knew what would happen next.

READ A REVIEW:

Joan of Arc by Helen Castor – a triumph of history
There have been many lives of the saint, but none quite like this masterly narrative drawing on strictly contemporary sources, writes Janet Nelson in this review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Helen Castor is is an English historian of the medieval period and a BBC broadcaster.