Rediscovering Joan of Arc

Almost six centuries later, the life story of this fifteenth-century Frenchwoman continues to be retold in biographies, novels, children’s books, movies, histories, and even journal articles. The famous American writer Mark Twain spent a dozen years researching Joan’s life and wrote a respectful novel about her, even though he was no friend of Christianity or the Catholic Church. Another famous biography was written by Hilaire Belloc, a naturalized English citizen who was born in France and who balanced the perspectives of England and France without ignoring Joan’s Catholicism.