At the top of this book’s copyright page it states: “This is a work of fiction. Though based on the known facts of the life of Hypatia of Alexandria, the events and characters inscribed herein spring from the author’s imagination.” An understatement if ever there was one.
    What is known for sure is this. Alexandria on the Nile delta really was at one time the world’s foremost centre of learning (although by 391, the year this novel opens, it had already been in intellectual decline for centuries). The book’s heroine, Hypatia, really was the daughter of Theon, Egypt’s most renowned mathematician; and the family were wealthy, privileged and Greek. Hypatia herself was mathematician, astronomer, lecturer (on ethics for example) and an accomplished instrument-maker. As for her beliefs, she is definitely known to have been a Neo-platonist. She eventually became the most brilliant teacher in Alexandria, revered throughout both halves of the Roman Empire. And, finally, she really was lynched and hacked to death by Christians, for political reasons—a murder the Church later did its best to cover up by almost completely writing her out of history.
    Everything else in this book is made up. For a start, no images of her survive, so the picture on its cover (and on the covers of any other books about her) isn’t her. She was born around 355 or so, not 370ish as in this story, so would have been about sixty years old when murdered in 415—not young, or even middle-aged, as always portrayed. She was a lifelong celibate, so the relationship with Minkah—and the earlier sexual adventures hinted at—are all made up. “Minkah” himself is made up. There’s no evidence that the real Hypatia favoured Aristarchus’s heliocentric picture of the cosmos, as she does here. Even less is known about her family than about her, so the nonsense about her father spending the last decade of his life hiding in bed is exactly that. It’s not known whether she had brothers and sisters—“Lais” and “Jone” are also made up. More seriously, the Serapium (the temple in which Hypatia lectured) was demolished in 391 and it simply isn’t known whether it contained any remnant of the city’s former (and long-vanished) Great Library—so the stuff about rescuing its parchment scrolls from the flames and hiding them in caves in the Egyptian desert is all made up.
    Since her death, Hypatia’s name has been appropriated and abused endlessly. Because she was celibate for example, the medieval Church (ironically and grotesquely) claimed her as a symbol of chastity. In a later age she came to be seen as a champion of free-thinking, martyred by intolerance and fanaticism, or of rationality smothered by superstition. Later still, feminists claimed her. Today, the cinema, television and, of course, novelists are all busily exploiting her for their own ends. None of them can have more than the faintest inkling of what the real Hypatia of Alex was like as a human being because no one knows, and (until we invent a working time machine) no one will. Even worse, though, plainly none of them much care. If nothing else, this novel has given me a bit of insight, a glimpse anyway, into how modern myths take shape. Does anybody, anywhere on this entire wretched planet of ours, care about truth? ( )

I had such high expectations for this book and I was not dissapointed at all. It is wonderful. This is the story of Hypatia, a brilliant and independent woman living in Eygpt several hundred years after the birth of Jesus. It tells us about this incredible woman and her struggles at a time when Christianity is forcing its way across civilization. Longfellow's writing is absolutely beautiful. There are very few books in this world that I would want to read a second time, but this is certainly one of them, if only for the pleasure of Longfellow's beautifully written words. ( )

Just read the last page ten minutes ago and when I let it settle a bit I think I might just start all over. What a read and what a writer. Feel the same about The Secret Magdalene. These are not just historical tales so you can live in the past. These are stories to savor in your soul. ( )

If Longfellow's The Secret Magdalene was any less than it is, then this book would deserve 5 stars. It's a matter of comparison. If this was Hypatia, I love her. If these were her times, and I'm sure they were since Longfellow's research is exhaustive, then hail to Hypatia, my new hero. Where is her statue? ( )

If I was a writer I would write a wonderful review, I love this book so much. I do not understand people now or then. Why go out to hurt someone just because they don't feel or think like you do? It made no difference what you did or did not believe in...someone was out to get you. Why can't we be like little children and love everyone and everything? I don't know the answer. As brilliant as Hypatia was she didn't either. I love the characters and how they seem to intertwine together. To make it short and sweet I LOVE THIS BOOK. ( )