Mark Twain called this his finest work, the book he spent twelve years researching and two years writing, the one that gave him more pleasure than anything else he ever created. That alone should give you pause. What made the creator of Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer fall so utterly devoted to a fifteenth-century French peasant girl? The novel presents itself as the memoirs of Louis de Conte, Joan's page and secretary, and it uses this intimate perspective to transform history into something visceral and immediate. We meet Joan in her village of Domremy as a child, brave, compassionate, already strange in her absolute certainty, watching the English forces ravage her world. We see the visions that drove her, the voices that insisted she was meant to save France. Twain writes about her with something approaching reverence, depicting a young woman who would rally armies, who would march into battle at seventeen, who would change the course of the Hundred Years' War. This first volume covers her formative years and the weight of destiny settling upon her shoulders as France faces its darkest hour. It is for readers who want historical fiction that takes its subject seriously, who want to understand how faith and conviction can move the world.
