The Irish writer and critic Helen Waddell burst onto the publishing scene of the 1920s and 1930s as a phenomenon, a scholar whose books became instant bestsellers. Cross-fertilizing academic research with a vivid imagination, her literary history The Wandering Scholars explores the secular joys of the scholares vagantes, an emotional undercurrent traceable throughout the ascetic centuries. Waddell s translations of Mediaeval Latin Lyrics read as poems in their own right; her novel, Peter Abelard, grounds the tragedy of the famous lovers Heloise and Abelard in the...

Helen Waddell's Peter Abelard (1933) is a beautifully crafted and meticulously researched novel about the controversial twelfth-century teacher and his lover, the learned Heloise. This annotated edition introduces and identifies the extensive literary and historical sources that Waddell incorporated into its action and dialogue. This best-seller combines a powerful love story with Abelard's redemptive theology and Heloise's questioning mind. The annotations and introduction, as well as supplementary material relating to its composition, situate the novel within a wider context of on-going...

Helen Waddell's Peter Abelard (1933) is a beautifully crafted and meticulously researched novel about the controversial twelfth-century teacher and his lover, the learned Heloise. This annotated edition introduces and identifies the extensive literary and historical sources that Waddell incorporated into its action and dialogue. This best-seller combines a powerful love story with Abelard's redemptive theology and Heloise's questioning mind. The annotations and introduction, as well as supplementary material relating to its composition, situate the novel within a wider context of on-going...