Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present by Anna M. Nogar, and: Hermanas de azul: Sor María de Ágreda viene a Nuevo México / Sisters in Blue: Sor María de Ágreda Comes to New Mexico by Anna M. Nogar, Enrique R. Lamadrid, and Amy Córdova (review)

In Quill and Cross in the Borderlands: Sor María de Ágreda and the Lady in Blue, 1628 to the Present, Anna Nogar takes her readers on an astonishing transatlantic journey through the centuries. She uncovers María de Ágreda, the at-times-forgotten or narratively limited Spanish nun historically identified as the protagonist of the US Southwest "Lady in Blue" folkloric tale. According to the tale, de Ágreda bilocated, miraculously appearing to Indigenous populations in what is now the US Southwest to prepare them for Christianity and colonization although she never left Spain. As Nogar notes, scholars have largely ignored the Lady in Blue story except as a regional legend, disconnected from its larger historical context. In contrast, Nogar inserts the story of the Lady in Blue within its transatlantic context of Spain, New Spain, and the missionary zeal of what is now the US Southwest. By examining Lady in Blue narratives contextualized by historical, cultural, and oral sources, she argues that the staying power of the legend stems from de Ágreda's popularity as a spiritual author in Spain and New Spain. In so doing, she affirms María de Ágreda's preeminent role as a female colonial figure. To do this, she examines the miracle narrative over four centuries and the transatlantic circulation of de Ágreda's writing.

After her well-crafted introduction, Nogar leads us through the history of the Lady in Blue narrative on the one hand, and the biography of María de Ágreda, including the diffusion and societal role of her spiritual writings, on the other. The first four chapters trace the narrative history alongside Sor María's biography and writings during the colonial era. Chapter 1 examines the foundational texts of the Lady in Blue narrative, with special attention to their writers (evangelizing missionaries) and their respective audiences. In chapter 2, Nogar establishes Sor María's importance in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Spain as a spiritual author and confidant to King Phillip IV, which allowed her most famous text, Mística ciudad de Dios, to circulate broadly. Chapter 3 details how her prominence in Spain led to her role as an influential spiritual author and religious figure in New Spain, with wide publication of her works that made her ideas accessible to large swathes of colonial Mexican society. Sor María's popularity in Spain and New Spain formed a transatlantic devotional community. In chapter 4, Nogar turns her attention specifically to Northern New Spain (New Mexico, Texas, Arizona, and California). She shows that through Franciscan friars and Jesuits, de Ágreda's writing preceded and paved the way for the Lady in Blue narrative, which in turn became a foundational

Figure 1.

Illustration from Hermanas de azul: Sor María de Ágreda viene a Nuevo México / Sisters in Blue: Sor María de Ágreda Comes to New Mexico. Amy Cordova © 2017. Courtesy: University of New Mexico Press.

story, "cited from both written and collective memory" and "an essential episode in the exploration and colonization" (7).

The last two chapters span transformations of the Lady in Blue narrative from the nineteenth century onward. They contrast significantly with the first two centuries of the Lady in Blue narrative's history that intertwined María de Ágreda's authorial...