Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

Pope Joan has all the elements one wants in a historical drama - love, sex, violence, duplicity, and long-buried secrets. Cross has written an engaging book.-Los Angeles Times Book Review

In this international bestseller and basis for the 2009 movie of the same name, Donna Woolfolk Cross brings the Dark Ages to life in all their brutal splendor and shares the dramatic story of a woman whose strength of vision led her to defy the social restrictions of her day.

For a thousand years her existence has been denied. She is the legend that will not die--Pope Joan, the ninth-century woman who disguised herself as a man and rose to become the only female ever to sit on the throne of St. Peter. Now in this riveting novel, Cross paints a sweeping portrait of an unforgettable heroine who struggles against restrictions her soul cannot accept.

Brilliant and talented, young Joan rebels against medieval social strictures forbidding women to learn. When her brother is brutally killed during a Viking attack, Joan takes up his cloak--and his identity--and enters the monastery of Fulda. As Brother John Anglicus, Joan distinguishes herself as a great scholar and healer. Eventually, she is drawn to Rome, where she becomes enmeshed in a dangerous web of love, passion, and politics. Triumphing over appalling odds, she finally attains the highest office in Christendom--wielding a power greater than any woman before or since. But such power always comes at a price . . .

Brings the savage ninth century vividly to life in all its alien richness. An enthralling, scholarly historical novel.
--Rebecca Fraser, Author of The Bront s

Donna Woolfolk Cross earned a B.A. from the University of Pennsylvania in 1969, graduating with honors and Phi Beta Kappa. in the English language After graduation, she relocated to London, England, and worked as an editing assistant for W.H. Smith, a small publishing business on Fleet Street. Allen and Company is a firm that specializes in financial services. Cross returned to the United States and worked at Young and Rubicam, a Madison Avenue advertising business, before attending UCLA and earning a master's degree in Literature and Writing in 1972.

Cross where her husband moved to Syracuse, New York, in 1973, and she began teaching English in an upstate New York college. She is the coauthor of Speaking of Words and the author of two books on language, Word Abuse and Mediaspeak. Pope Joan is her debut novel, the result of seven years of research and writing. Cross is currently working on a new novel set in the seventeenth century in France.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780345416261
ISBN 10	0345416260
Title	Pope Joan
Author	Donna Woolfolk Cross
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Random House USA Inc
Year published	1997-08-19
Number of pages	448
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.