The Earliest Surviving English Book Known to Be Written by a Woman

Revelations of Divine Love holds the distinction of being the earliest surviving book in the English language known to have been written by a woman, a fact that has made it a landmark text well beyond its specifically theological significance. Despite this importance, the work had a relatively narrow circulation for centuries; the Long Text was not printed until 1670, and it did not reach a genuinely wide readership until renewed scholarly and popular attention from the twentieth century onward, so Julian's current standing as one of the most read English mystics is substantially a modern development rather than a continuous reputation stretching back to her own time.

Glasscoe's scholarly edition of the Long Text, A Revelation of Love, remains a standard reference for the work's complex manuscript history, since the text survives in only a small number of manuscripts, none contemporary with Julian herself, requiring careful editorial reconstruction. Julian's combination of rigorous, sometimes startling theological reasoning with an intensely personal visionary voice has made her one of the figures modern readers most often turn to first when approaching medieval Christian mysticism.