With its overview of the Middle Ages that spans the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of European exploration in the New World, Revelations offers a vivid, imaginative, and original insight into this fascinating era. Color throughout, including five 6-page gatefolds.
James Harpur has had four poetry collections published by Anvil Press: A Vision of Comets (1993), The Monk’s Dream (1996), Oracle Bones (2001) and The Dark Age (2007). Anvil have also published his Fortune’s Prisoner, a translation of the poems of Boethius. In addition, he has published a sequence of religious poems called The Gospel of Joseph of Arimathea (Wild Goose, 2008). His prose publications include Love Burning in the Soul (Shambhala, 2005), an introduction to the Christian mystics.
After studying Classics and English at university, he taught English on the island of Crete then worked as a lexicographer. He is now a freelance writer.
James has won a number of prizes for his poetry, including the 1995 British National Poetry Competition. He has received various awards and bursaries, such as from Cork Arts, the Eric Gregory Trust, the Society of Authors, the Arts Council (UK), and the Hawthornden Foundation. His poems have been broadcast on national and local radio in Ireland and the UK and have appeared in various anthologies. These include Staying Alive (Bloodaxe, 2002), Ireland’s Love Poems (Kyle Cathie, 2000), The New Exeter Book of Riddles (Enitharmon, 2002), The Forward Book of Poetry (Faber, 2001), Voices in the Gallery (Tate Publishing 1986).
He has performed his poetry widely at poetry festivals and venues, including the Triskel Arts Centre (Cork), the Voice Box (London), the ICA (London), and the Irish Writers’ Centre (Dublin). He has held poetry residencies at the Munster Literature Centre in Cork and at Exeter Cathedral in the UK.
He is currently poetry editor of the Temenos Academy Review, a publication founded by the poet and William Blake scholar, Kathleen Raine, and of Southword, one of Ireland’s leading literary journals.
This work of non-fiction history enlightens every reader about the world in the Middle Ages. It is filled with details, maps, illustrations, and anecdotes that light up a time on Earth which is often called the Dark Ages. It is revealed here that it was much more alive, active, thoughtful, and crucial to the future in ways this book helps us understand. The world of Charlamagne, Abelard, the Crusades, and the roots of the Renaissance. I recommend it to anyone who wants to understand the age of castles, kings, knights, and the power of the church.