🎯 Where Should I Start?
ⓘ About Bruce Holsinger
Bruce Holsinger is an American author of crime and historical mystery books best known John Gower Historical Thriller series. He is also a lecturer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where he teaches medieval literature. His John Gower series is set in medieval London featuring John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer. His standalone novel The Gifted School is set in a fictionalized town where pressure parenting is the rule of the game. According to an interview published in National Public Radio website, the fictional town is loosely based on Boulder, Colorado which is where he taught for several years and where his children were born. Additionally, Bruce has authored nonfiction books on medieval culture and literature and won a Guggenheim Fellowship.
All Book Series by Bruce Holsinger
Mismapping the Underworld
Series opener · book 1 of 14 · published 1994 Anthology · John Kleiner
Literary History and the Challenge of Philology
Book 2 of 14 · published 1996 Anthology · Seth Lerer
Medieval Venuses and Cupids
Book 3 of 14 · published 1996 Anthology · Theresa Tinkle
Reading Myth
Book 4 of 14 · published 1997 Anthology · Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
Images of the Medieval Peasant
Book 7 of 14 · published 1999 Anthology · Paul Freedman
The Subject Medieval/Modern
Latest in the series · book 14 of 14 · published 2003 Anthology · Peter Haidu
Neomedievalism, Neoconservatism, and the War on Terror
Book 3 of 4 · published 2007
? Frequently Asked Questions
Who is Bruce Holsinger?
Bruce Holsinger is an American author of crime and historical mystery books best known John Gower Historical Thriller series. He is also a lecturer at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville where he teaches medieval literature. His John Gower series is set in medieval London featuring John Gower and Geoffrey Chaucer.
Which Bruce Holsinger series should I start with?
The best place to start is the Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture series, the earliest of Bruce Holsinger's multi-book series: it opens with Mismapping the Underworld (1994) and runs to 14 books across 1994–2003, ending with The Subject Medieval/Modern (2003).
How many books has Bruce Holsinger written?
Bruce Holsinger has 23 books catalogued in this guide, published between 1994 and 2025. 16 of them belong to 2 named series — the largest being the Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture series with 14 books — and 7 are standalone titles, collections or anthologies.
In what order should Bruce Holsinger's series be read?
Read each series in publication order — the numbered entries in each series follow the year each book first appeared. Bruce Holsinger's series do not depend on one another, so they can be started in any order; by start date they are Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture (1994–2003, 14 books) and John Gower (2014–2015, 2 books).
How are Bruce Holsinger's books organised into series?
This guide splits Bruce Holsinger's 23 books into 2 named series and 7 titles that stand alone or appear only in collections: Figurae: Reading Medieval Culture (14 books, 1994–2003); John Gower (2 books, 2014–2015).