"The staggering erudition of McGinn's latest volume is no surprise, nor is the lucidity of his expositions of the vernacular mysticisms that flourished in the Low Countries, Italy and England in the late middle ages. What dawns on you as you progress through McGinn's magisterial retrieval of fourteenth and fifteenth century developments in 'mystical theology' is how seriously Ruusbroec, Catherine of Siena, Julian of Norwich and a host of lesser figures have to be taken as theologians. Much more than a history of western Christian mysticism, this volume calls for and supplies a major revaluation of theology in the late medieval Christian church."
—Dr. Denys Turner, professor of religion at Yale Divinity School

"McGinn's The Varieties of Vernacular Mysticism is an astonishing achievement. No one will approach religious and mystical teaching in the late middle ages (1300-1550) quite the same way again. The broadest and richest account of Dutch mystical writers, a vision of Italian mystical writing that puts Catherine of Siena alongside Marsilio Ficino and Christian kabbalists, a fresh approach to famed English writers (Rolle, Julian, the Cloud author) fitting them into a larger religious world—all this in one volume, with serious attention to thought and theology, a close reading of texts, generous citation of vernacular originals, and weighty bibliographies. It is hard to imagine one person even attempting it, but McGinn has done it."
—John Van Engen, University of Notre Dame