Joan of Arc (1)

Using transcripts of the actual heresy trials and using letters dictated by Jehanne (anglicised to Joan) during her life, Trask has produced a collection of excerpts arranged to read as the story of her mission and her eventual condemnation in her own words.

While not a novel as such, I still found this small volume quite fascinating, especially for the tone of Joan's words and the absolute faith she has in her visions and her beliefs. The story of Joan of Arc is one everybody knows yet I show more still discovered new facts to me and of course spent a good hour afterwards googling more information.

She was illiterate yet there is a lot more wisdom behind her words then you would expect, especially in her answers to the very circular questions at her trial, designed to trap her into revealing herself as a heretic or witch (which she never did).

The 30 page Afterword at the end of the book is also good reading and goes into more details about certain pivotal points in her short life.

About 25 years after her death and on the insistence of her mother, there was an enquiry into the trial that ended with Pope Callixtus III pronouncing her innocent and declaring her a matyr. She was made a saint at the beginning of the 20th century and is a national treasure to the French. show less

I saw this at my favorite used book store, the title caught me right away "In Her Own Words". Read it all one morning before getting out of bed. I've always been fascinated with Joan of Arc, so reading her words from letters and from the trials was so interesting. It helped to know some background on her before picking up the book, but I can't wait to pick up some other books.

Stark and poignant: St. Joan's exact words, and her words alone. Makes her life stand out black on white--or perhaps her life, white on the black world of man's inhumanity to man.

i'm assuming this is the same as "Joan of Arc: Self Portrait" by the same author?