Pope Joan

First published in the 1950s, this modern masterpiece is Lawrence Durrell's translation and adaptation of Emmanuel Royidis's classic Papissa Joanna--the story of history's only female pope. The story's source is a ninth-century legend: a girl disguised as a monk makes her way from Greece to Rome, is elevated to the throne of St. Peter, and rules over Christendom for a time as Pope John VIII.