John Foxe

John Foxe (1516–April 8, 1587) is remembered as the author of the famous Foxe's Book of Martyrs.

Other publications and papers

A list of his Latin tracts and sermons is given by Wood, and others, some of which were never printed, appear in John Bale's Catalogus. Four editions of the Actes and Monuments appeared in Foxe's lifetime. The eighth edition (1641) contains a memoir of Foxe purporting to be by his son Samuel, the manuscript of which is in the British Museum (Lansdowne manuscript 388). Samuel Foxe's authorship is disputed, with much show of reason, by Dr S. R. Maitland in On the Memoirs of Foxe ascribed to his Son (1841). The best-known modern edition of the Martyrology is that (1837-1841) by the Rev. Stephen R. Cattley, with an introductory life by Canon George Townsend. The numerous inaccuracies of this life and the frequent errors of Foxe's narrative were exposed by S. R. Maitland in a series of tracts (1837-1842), collected (1841-1842) as Notes on the Contributions of the Rev. George Townsend, M.A. ... to the New Edition of Fox's Martyrology. (See The Maitland Controversy.) The criticism lavished on Cattley and Townsend's edition led to a new one (1846-1849) under the same editorship. A new text prepared by the Rev. Josiah Pratt was issued (1870) in the "Reformation Series" of the Church Historians of England, with a revised version of Townsend's Life and appendices giving copies of original documents. A later edition was produced by W. Grinton Berry (1907), but none of these satisfy contemporary scholarly needs and requirements for critical editions. Thus in recent times, (1990-) renewed interest in and scholarship on Foxe as a seminal figure in early modern studies created a demand for a new critical edition of the Actes and Monuments that is not based solely on one of Foxe's editions or an ahistorical hybrid of all or several. To that end, the Foxe's Book of Martyrs Variorum Edition was conceived and is partially complete, with a complete date of 2008.

Related Topics:
John Bale - British Museum

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Foxe's papers are preserved in the Harleian and Lansdowne collections in the British Museum. Extracts from these were edited by J.G. Nichols for the Camden Society (1859). See also W. Winters, Biographical Notes on John Foxe (1876); James Gairdner, History of the English Church in the Sixteenth Century.

Related Topics:
J.G. Nichols - Camden Society - James Gairdner

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~