Saint Joan of Arc is a biography of Joan of Arc by Vita Sackville-West first published in New York and London in 1936. The Grove Press (New York City) re-issue of 2001 runs to 395 pages including numerous appendices that collate the events of Joan's life, present a chronological table and give a bibliography of related pre-1936 works.
"Deeply and rightly as one mistrusts the historian who draws too freely on his imagination to fill in the details of the cold outline provided by official documents, there are occasions when it becomes only reasonable for him to do so." (Vita Sackville-West, Saint Joan of Arc, page 66-67)
Historians began to criticize this book on its publication. To begin with, and as indicated in the quotation above, Ms. Sackville-West, a novelist, attempted to supply many details by speculation and sometimes on subjects for which documented evidence does exist.
It seems inevitable that such an approach would elicit criticism especially when applied to a personage well-documented in primary sources. There are two matters in particular which seem to have fuelled the greatest opprobium.
The first is Ms. Sackville-West's suggestions concerning Joan's sexuality, which include the implication (although never explicitly stated) that Joan may have been a lesbian or at least attracted to women. Historians have pointed out that this was based on nothing more than the standard medieval practice of coping with limited bedspace by having guests share a bed with others of the same gender. Joan of Arc was occasionally bunked with people such as the nine-year old child Charlotte Boucher and other girls or women. The eyewitnesses who mention such situations also specify that Joan of Arc was chaste rather than sexually active.
Another point of contention concerns the following statement by the author in reference to Joan: "I think it is not unfair to qualify her as unattractive" (op. cit., page 7). This latter statement is based on testimony of several witnesses to the effect that soldiers and others, with whom she spent much time, felt no carnal desire for her, but these witnesses also said that she was "beautiful and shapely", noting that they were surprised by a lack of desire for her, attributing this to the effect of Divine grace suppressing their normal impulses. Ms. Sackville-West has therefore been criticized for glossing over this context in order to make an unsupportable claim.
Historians have rejected a number of other of the author's interpretations.
Such issues have led some to condemn the entire book outright. For example, Bonnie Wheeler of the International Joan of Arc Society and the author of a book about Joan, has stated that the book is "dead wrong". And yet, as a whole, Ms. Sackville-West's treatment of her subject shows a great deal of sympathy and respect. In fact, even her harshest critics generally qualify the book as being one of the most readable treatments of the Joan of Arc story.