Margery Kempe
&
The Fire of Love

 

 

Editions of "The Book of Margery Kempe":

• Meech, Sanford Brown, and Hope Emily Allen, eds. The Book of Margery Kempe. EETS. Original series; no. 212. London: Oxford University Press, 1940. (This is the first scholarly edition of the text) 

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Trans. Barry Windeatt. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985.

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Trans. Tony D Triggs. Burns and Oates, 1995; Gracewing, 2018.   

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. Lynn Staley. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1996. 

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Trans. John Skinner. New York: Image Books/Doubleday, 1998. 

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Ed. and trans. by Lynn Staley. New York: Norton, 2001. (Includes contexts and criticism) 

• Kempe, Margery. The Book of Margery Kempe. Trans. Anthony Bale. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015. 

 

Biographical and Critical Studies:

• Atkinson, Clarissa. Mystic and Pilgrim: The Book and the World of Margery Kempe. Cornell University Press, 1983.

• Bale, Anthony. Margery Kempe: A Mixed Life. Reaktion Books, 2021.

• Beaulieu, Katharine. "Her Body is the Temple of the Holy Ghost: Why Margery Kempe is a Better 'Virgin.'" Magistra 23 (2017): 90-96. 

• Bhattacharji, Santha. God Is An Earthquake: The Spirituality of Margery Kempe. London: Darton, Longman, and Todd, 1997.  

• Howes, Laura L. 'On the Birth of Margery Kempe's Last Child,' Modern Philology Vol. 90 No 2 Nov 1992 (available here).

• "Mapping Margery Kempe: A Guide to Late Medieval Material and Spiritual Life" is in World History Commons, https://worldhistorycommons.org/mapping-margery-kempe-guide-late-medieval-material-and-spiritual-life. This website provides a wide range of resources related to Kempe's life and to the society and culture in which she lived. 

• Staley, Lynn. "The Book of Margery Kempe: A New Translation, Contexts and Criticism." New York: Norton, 2001. 

 

Other Relevant Works:

• "The Book of Margery Kempe." Medieval England 1000-1500: A Reader. Ed. Emilie Amt. Blackwell, 2000. (Includes excerpts from Kempe's 'Book.')

• "The Book of Margery Kempe." Medieval Women's Visionary Literature. Ed. Elizabeth Alvilda Petroff. Oxford University Press, 1986. (Includes excerpts from Kempe's 'Book.')

• "The Book of Margery Kempe." Medieval Writings on Female Spirituality. Ed. Elizabeth Spearing. Penguin, 2001. (Includes excerpts from Kempe's 'Book.')

 

Explorations of Margery Kempe in Drama and Fiction:

• Glück, R (1994) Margery Kempe. New York, High Risk Books

• MacKenzie, V. (2023) For Thy Great Pain Have Mercy On My Little Pain. London, Bloomsbury​​

• Triggs, T. (2025) The Fire of Love. KDP, 2025