About the Author
PENGUIN 
CLASSICS
REVELATIONS OF DIVINE LOVE
JULIAN OF NORWICH (c. 1342–after 1416) is the first writer in English who can be certainly identified as a woman. Nothing is known of her background, not even her real name. On 8 May 1373, when seriously ill and apparently dying, she received an extraordinary series of ‘showings’ or revelations from God, beginning when her parish priest held up a crucifix before her and she saw blood trickling down Christ’s face. After her recovery, she spent many years pondering the significance of the showings, which she believed to be messages to all Christians. They taught, among other things, that God is our mother as well as our father, that he cannot be angry with us and that no Christian will be damned – doctrines which Julian had great difficulty in reconciling with the Church’s teachings. She wrote two accounts of the showings: an earlier, shorter version of Revelations of Divine Love and a later, longer version, in which we can recognize her development from a visionary into the most remarkable English theologian of her time. In later life she lived as an anchoress at St Julian’s Church, Norwich (from which she adopted the name by which she is known), and became famous as a spiritual adviser. This volume includes both versions of the Revelations. They are major works of religious devotion, of theology and of English literature; their beauty and originality have won them many modern admirers (including T. S. Eliot), and in recent years they have attracted special attention for their female authorship and their attribution of feminine characteristics to God.
ELIZABETH SPEARING holds a D.Phil. from the University of York. Her previous publications include an edition of The Life and Death of Mal Cutpurse and articles on the Amadis cycle and on Aphra Behn.
A. C. SPEARING is William R. Kenan Professor of English at the University of Virginia and a Fellow of Queens’ College, Cambridge. He has published numerous books and articles on medieval literature.
Elizabeth Spearing and A. C. Spearing have collaborated previously on editions of Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale, Shakespeare’s The Tempest and an anthology Poetry of the Age of Chaucer. They live near Norwich.