"A masterful undertaking of historical literature, following sixteenth-century religious fervor in a picaresque novel about Saint John of the Cross. In August 1592, a bailiff and his two assistants arrive at the monastery of Úbeda, with the secret task of transferring the body of Saint John of the Cross, the great Carmelite poet and mystic who had died the previous year, to his final abode in Segovia. When they exhume him, they find a body incorrupted...

"One of the greatest lyrical poets in Spanish of any age, St. John of the Cross (1542-1591) enjoys an authoritative status as a theologian and teacher of the mystical road to union with God. This full-length study, vividly written in a style accessible to contemporary readers, devotes a separate chapter to each of St. John's major works, citing the original Spanish and providing English translations throughout. Looking for connections between his...