Joan of Arc

Castor’s previous Folio title, She-Wolves, was a bestseller and we have worked closely with the author on this new illustrated edition of the equally absorbing Joan of Arc. Illustrated using incredible archive documents, paintings and illuminations, Castor’s account features lavish portraits of key figures – including John the Fearless and Philip the Good – as well as bloody battle scenes, the sole surviving image of Joan made within her lifetime, and an example of her signature. The stunning cloth binding is blocked with a striking silver portrait of Joan in full armour.

Abandon your strongholds and go back to your country. If not, I will make a war-cry that will be remembered forever

The year is 1429 and a 17-year-old girl from the village of Domrémy in north-east France is granted an audience with the dauphin to share her divine message. Her absolute belief in God’s plan to overthrow the English at Orléans, and thus prevent their advance into Armagnac-held France, eventually leads to her being despatched to the town, which has been under siege for seven months. Just four days after Joan the Maid arrives, the English retreat and the town is liberated. However, her rise to glory is short-lived: just two years after this unprecedented victory, Joan is put on trial by the Burgundians for heresy, and she is burned at the stake. Five hundred years later, Joan of Arc was made patron saint of France and became the only person in history to be both condemned and canonised by the Catholic Church.

In France, a deeply religious country with a history of female visionaries, Joan was not unusual, but her ascendance to military leadership and the victory she secured made her legendary. Over the intervening centuries, Joan has been mythologised and her story often retold without its wider historical context. Here, Castor peels away the conjecture to reveal the woman behind the hearsay; a proud young patriot driven by religious conviction in the midst of a bloody civil war. The part Joan played in turning the tide of the Hundred Years War is remarkable, but it can only be fully appreciated as part of a carefully retold chronological history, and Castor’s is, without doubt, the definitive account.