Wolfgang Riehle, The Secret Within: Hermits, Recluses, and Spiritual Outsiders in Medieval England

In 2011, Wolfgang Riehle's monograph Englische Mystik des Mittelalters was published (C. H. Beck). The Secret Within, translated into elegant English by Charity Scott-Stokes, is a modified version of this earlier book. Riehle's focus is on mystical texts, and to this extent the original German title is more accurate than the new English one. Riehle has been publishing on medieval English mysticism for many decades, and in The Secret Within he engages not only with a wealth of scholars' views from both English- and German-language scholarship (often in the rich and detailed endnotes), but also with his own earlier assessments (for example, in his view that his earlier research had dismissed Margery Kempe too quickly).