The story of St. Margaret of Antioch is well known to medievalists, especially those who study the lives of saints, in large part because of the extraordinary scene in which the young woman is swallowed by a dragon that bursts apart when she makes the sign of the cross. This story circulated in multiple forms throughout the Middle Ages and was a popular feature of medieval art. In her new monograph, A Maid with a Dragon: The Cult of St Margaret of Antioch in Medieval England, Juliana Dresvina captures the complexity and rich texture of this saint's legend and provides valuable new resources for understanding the enduring legacy of Margaret's cult.

In her introduction, Dresvina outlines her approach to St. Margaret's narrative, explaining that while Margaret's sister saints Katherine and Mary Magdalene have enjoyed immense popularity in academic circles, the virgin from Antioch has been largely overlooked despite her extensive medieval presence. Dresvina acknowledges what work has been done on St. Margaret and her comprehensive bibliography suggests that she is thoroughly conversant with the extant body of scholarship on these female saints, even if she does not always cite it. But it is in filling the critical gap in work on St. Margaret that Dresvina's work is most useful. She argues that this book is the first complete study on Margaret's cult that juxtaposes the textual history of her legend from the eighth century through the Reformation with iconography and images over the same time span, including a variety of visual resources. To that end, she arranges the book in two sections: texts and images, with four appendices cataloging the extant manuscripts of Margaret's vita, providing transcriptions of each one (though it is not always clear whether she is using published transcriptions or her own), listing examples of Margaret imagery, comparing the dragon and demon episodes in the different versions, and detailing the pictorial cycles of her life in both England and on the Continent.

Because of the vast number of surviving versions of St. Margaret's legend, Dresvina necessarily confines her discussion and analysis only to those circulating in England, albeit in French, Latin, and English. The first section tracks the development of the legend from the earliest Greek versions through the different forms and languages in the later Middle Ages, touching on unique variations such as the single extant play and providing a map of cult centers in England. Several chapters in this section offer complete discussions of the textual traditions in England, but others could—and should—expand on specific argument further. For example, in chapter 7 Dresvina posits that if the prose life of Margaret in Bodleian MS Eng.th.e. 18 was produced in London, then its source may have been continental rather than English. But she devotes only a few pages to this compelling suggestion and the support for it.

In the second part Dresvina addresses the motifs and iconography of Margaret's legend, though some of these chapters are very short and only glance at the thematic aspects. While in these chapters she does consider the broader aspects of Margaret's legend in the context of both narrative and iconography, it often seems introductory and perfunctory. Chapter 9, on virginity, sexuality, and temptation, is only two pages and merely glosses over the significance of Margaret as a virgin martyr, arguing that, while important, virginity “is not an indispensable value of the story per se” (147). In the next chapter, on Margaret's torture in historical perspective, she goes into more detail and expands on several established discussions on hagiographical violence, but the discussion is by no means exhaustive, nor does it offer much that is new. However, as Dresvina explains in the introduction, her aim is to give the most complete picture of the Margaret's cult in England, textually and visually, and so the thematic chapters are meant more as starting points for further research rather than complete studies. Chapter 12, which focuses specifically on the iconography, includes stunning color plates of images ranging from hagiographies to sculpture to a modern depiction of Princess Aurora from the Disney film Sleeping Beauty. In this chapter Dresvina skillfully examines the textual material in conjunction with the visual evidence and analyzes the changes in aspects of Margaret's story, particularly in her dragon and demon encounters and the reoccurring motifs in both literature and art.

Overall, the work is successful and valuable. Dresvina has brought together a multitude of source material on the life of St. Margaret in England, giving depth to this saint who played such a significant role in the devotion of medieval people, especially women who looked to her for intercession and succor in childbirth and maternity. It is an important resource for developing further studies on the textual and visual traditions regarding St. Margaret and restores this particular virgin martyr to her rightful place among her more-studied sisters.