One More Gift Book Title

It's amazing what one stumbles across while cleaning house for the holidays. No, alas, it's not another duplicate book, so no contest involved here. (Though my contest for a copy of A Medieval Herbal is still on going through Christmas Eve!) It is, however, a copy of Through the Glass Window Shines the Sun: An Anthology of Medieval Poetry and Prose, edited by Pamela Norris. This is a little larger than the gift books I referred to previously. Okay, so maybe it's quite a bit bigger at 7.5" X 7.5". But it's still very much in the style of the gift books I described in my previous post on that subject, designed with the text on one page and a beautiful period painting reproduction on the facing page.

Through the Glass Window... begins with an introduction by Pamela Norris. In her own words, this book: "...brings together writing and painting from across the spectrum of medieval life, spanning a period of around 350 years, from the late twelfth century to the reign of Henry VIII."

Ms Norris divides her book into four sections:

• "The Queen of Heaven", focusing on medieval religious prose and poetry
• "My True Love and Lady", focusing on secular love between men and women
• "In Peace and War", focusing on "the diversity of medieval life"
• "Marvelous Tales", with excerpts from the sort of fantastical stories that men and women of that age enjoyed wiling the hours away listening to on a cold winter's night. (Many of which might equally well wile away many a winter's evening of our own...or spring's, or summer's, or fall's, for that matter!)

As I warned you to be the case with most of these beautiful gift books, this one, too, is currently out of print, but used copies are available on Amazon, and it never hurts to Google the title for additional options.