Some illustrations. An inspiring dramatic account of the colorful and courageous life and death of the martyr, St. Edmund Campion, "hero of God's underground" during the persecution of Catholics in England in the 1500's.

For adventure, suspense, and sheer drama, Evelyn Waugh's biography of St. Edmund Campion rivals Braveheart. And it's told with the grace and skill that won Waugh millions of fans for his Brideshead Revisited. High adventure and holiness: it's a sure winner with all readers.

Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life is the response, at long last, to Evelyn Waugh’s call, in 1935, for a ’scholarly biography’ to replace Richard Simpson's Edmund Campion (1867). Whereas early accounts of his life focused on the execution of the Jesuit priest, this new biography presents a more balanced assessment, placing equal weight on Campion’s London upbringing among printers and preachers, and on his growing stature as an orator in an Oxford riven with religious divisions. Ireland, chosen by Campion as a haven from religious conflict, is shown, paradoxically, to have determined his life and his death. Gerard Kilroy here draws on newly discovered manuscript sources to reveal Campion as a charismatic and affectionate scholar who was finding fulfilment as priest and teacher in Prague when he was summoned to lead the first Jesuit mission to England. The book argues that the delays in his long journey suggest reluctant acceptance, even before he was told that Dr Nicholas Sander had brought ’holy war’ to Ireland, so that Campion landed in an England that was preparing for papal invasion. The book offers fresh insights into the dramatic search for Campion, the populist nature of the disputations in the Tower, and the legal issues raised by his torture. It was the monarchical republic itself that, in pursuit of the Anjou marriage, made him the beloved ’champion’ of the English Catholic community. Edmund Campion: A Scholarly Life presents the most detailed and comprehensive picture to date of an historical figure whose loyalty and courage, in the trial and on the scaffold, swiftly became legendary across Europe.

The death of Edmund Campion in 1581 marked a disjunction between the world of printed untruth and private, handwritten, truth in Elizabethan England. Gerard Kilroy here uncovers a fascinating network of scribal communities where Campion manuscripts circulated among a group of families dominated by Sir John Harington and Sir Thomas Tresham. His work provides startling new views about Campion's literary, historical and cultural impact in early modern England. The book lays the foundations of the first full literary assessment of Campion the scholar, the impact he had on the literature of early modern England, and the long legacy in manuscript writing.

Gerard Kilroy here draws on newly discovered manuscript sources to reveal Campion as a charismatic and affectionate scholar who was finding fulfilment as priest and teacher in Prague when he was summoned to lead the first Jesuit mission to England. The book offers fresh insights into the dramatic search for Campion, the populist nature of the disputations in the Tower, and the legal issues raised by his torture. It was the monarchical republic itself that made him the beloved ‘champion’ of the English Catholic community. Edmund Campion presents the most detailed and comprehensive picture to date of an historical figure whose loyalty and courage, in the trial and on the scaffold, swiftly became legendary across Europe.

Recount the life of Edmund Campion, saint and martyr in this newly revised and definitive version from TAN Books. A new and updated life of St. Edmund Campion, Simpson's classic biography has been thoroughly revised and enlarged by Fr. Peter Joseph. With a foreword by Cardinal Pell.