" - Newsweek [author photo] UMBERTO ECO is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the best-selling novels The Prague Cemetery and Foucault's Pendulum, and most recently, the essay collection Inventing the Enemy.

The Seven Storey Mountain is one of the most famous books ever written about a man's search for faith and peace.

A collection of critical essays examine the Ellis Peters mystery series featuring the twelfth-century Benedictine monk and detective Brother Cadfael.

John Climacus (c. 579-649) was abbot of the monastery of Catherine on Mount Sinai. His Ladder was the most widely used handbook of the ascetical life in the ancient Greek Church.

Francis (c. 1182-1226) and Clare (c. 1193-1254) together shaped the spirituality of early 13th-century Europe. Here for the first time in English are their complete writings, brought together in one volume.

In 1327, Franciscans in a wealthy Italian abbey are suspected of heresy, and Brother William of Bakersville arrives to investigate.

Careful attention to references, notes and appendices demonstrate the outstanding research and writing which helped produce this monumental volume."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc.

Merton has felt free, as a monk, to do what generations of monks before him have done. He has made a wholly independent and original use of material which is the traditional basis of Christian monastic spirituality." -- Dust jacket.