Book Annotation — Fire in the North: The Life of St. Cuthbert

(London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 1993) 274pp. [ISBN 978-0-281-06044-3]

This book is a fine little book. In it David Adam takes all of the most relevant scenes from the various lives of St. Cuthbert (relying most heavily on Bede’s Life, but also using Bede’s Ecclesiatstical History, the anonymous Life of St. Cuthbert, and other sources too) and stitching them together with his own imaginative prose to create a very readable little book. I like this book as an entry-way to the more difficult to read genre of hagiography. Adams softens some of what seems most odd in the original sources, and adds a narrative which roughly follows Cuthbert’s life from childhood to death. That more familiar structure makes this easier to access. Having read several translations of the source-documents of the Life of Saint Cuthbert - I can say that Adam has done well in including all the most important moments in the original texts. I highly recommend this book.