Carlos Eire has written an excellent introduction to The Life of Saint Teresa of Avila. Written in his clear, accessible and lively prose, Eire places the sixteenth-century Spanish nun's life into each of the contexts a reader would need to engage her mystical writings. Eire is a historian, and of course he places the Vida in the context of sixteenth-century Spain and the world of Counter-Reformation and Baroque Catholicism. But he also engages the mystical theology at the heart of the Life, its complex writing and publication history, and the long reception of this text, from its earliest days to the present. Eire's book also effectively blends together the story of St Teresa's life with the life and afterlife of her Vida, giving the reader a wonderfully rounded understanding of what he considers a ‘great religious book’ (p. 123).

Teresa of Avila (1515–82) was a Carmelite nun who experienced intense mystical experiences, including frequent visions of God, Jesus, heaven and hell. Renowned in her own lifetime as a kind of living saint, she was also the victim of regular investigations by the Inquisition, which was always suspicious of those accessing the sacred directly. Eire shows how Teresa, particularly in her Life, carefully presented herself as an obedient servant of the Church and its male clergy, a sinful woman seeking God, even as that discourse coexisted with the image of a strong and assertive leader, confident in the truth of her experiences. Eire points out that she ‘embodied the Counter-Reformation’ (p. 164), living proof of Catholic theology that emphasised the kind of prayers and devotions that led to Teresa's visions and contrasted with Protestant rejections of miracles and saints. Teresa was canonised in 1622 and even made a Doctor of the Church in 1970.

Eire expertly explicates the text of the Vida, explaining the intricate development of this text. There is no doubt that it was written by Teresa herself, in various stages, but it was also edited (and censored) by several different male clerics, most of whom served as Teresa's confessors. Teresa and her writings have had a long afterlife, praised and criticised, analysed and interpreted, by feminist writers, psychologists of all stripes, Spanish fascists, novelists and filmmakers, and of course by historians. Eire then evaluates a range of what he calls the ‘post-mystical interpretations’ of Teresa, sometimes with scepticism, often with praise for recent excellent studies. In the end, he insists that the heart of understanding both the Life and Teresa herself means understanding her mysticism. ‘Whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, when all is said and done, Teresa was a mystic, and her Vida was – and continues to be – a religious book’ (p. 222).