The earliest known autobiography in English, dictated by Margery Kempe — an East Anglian laywoman, brewer, and mother of fourteen — to two clerical scribes between 1436 and 1438. The narrative records her conversion, mystical experiences (visions, the "gift of tears," conversations with Christ), her pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, and repeated examinations by ecclesiastical authorities suspicious of her orthodoxy.
Kempe writes of herself throughout in the third person as "this creature," a device common in medieval devotional writing. Her account is distinctive for the closeness with which it observes ordinary life — failed business ventures, negotiations with her husband over vows of chastity, hostile receptions from clergy across England — alongside the mystical encounters at its centre. The narrative moves between the domestic and the visionary without apparent tension, which is one reason its genre remains disputed among scholars.
Reception
The manuscript was lost for nearly five centuries until a single copy was rediscovered in 1934 in the library of Colonel William Butler-Bowdon. Since then it has become central to medieval studies, women's history, and the history of English Christian mysticism; the standard scholarly edition (Sanford Brown Meech for the Early English Text Society, 1940) and the Penguin translation by Barry Windeatt are both in continuous use. Kempe's status as a mystic is contested — medievalists are split between readings that take her visionary experience at face value and those that frame her behaviour through post-partum or hysteria-spectrum interpretations; both readings have substantial scholarly literature.
Frequently asked
What is The Book of Margery Kempe about?
It is a first-person account dictated by Margery Kempe, a married laywoman from 15th-century England. The narrative covers her religious conversion, mystical experiences (including visions of Christ and the "gift of tears"), pilgrimages to Jerusalem, Rome, and Santiago de Compostela, and repeated interrogations by church authorities who suspected her of heresy.
Is The Book of Margery Kempe really the first autobiography in English?
It is widely described as the earliest surviving autobiography in English, composed c. 1436–1438. Some scholars prefer the term "autohagiography" because Kempe frames her life within the conventions of female saints' lives rather than modern notions of selfhood. Either way, it predates other first-person English life-writing by more than a century.
How was the book composed?
Kempe appears to have been unable to write herself and dictated her account to two clerical scribes. The single surviving manuscript was held in a private library for nearly five centuries; it was identified by the scholar Hope Emily Allen in 1934 in the library of Colonel William Butler-Bowdon.