The Correspondence and Unpublished Papers of Robert Persons, SJ

• Jesuits
• Reformation & Counterreformation Theologies (c. 1300-1648)
• Cultural & intellectual history (c. 1501-1800)
• Religious history (c. 1501-1800)
• Historiography (c. 1501-1800)

“In a splendidly comprehensive introduction to this volume, the first of three, Victor Houliston asserts ‘the need for a scholarly edition of [Robert] Persons’s correspondence’ to supersede ‘the tendentious historiography of his career.’ He and his fellow editors have succeeded magnificently ... . This first volume constitutes not only a brilliant introduction to the impact on the Counter Reformation to the Atlantic Isles, but also an illuminating re-setting of the story in a European perspective through the lens of the Jesuit archives. ... It is a breathtaking achievement ... a major contribution to European history, and to our understanding of the complex personality and historical significance of Robert Persons.” — Dermot Fenlon, reviewing Volume 1 in Archivum Historicum Societatis Iesu

"The entire volume is a superb example of editorial craft. In the same manner as in Volume I, the letters, speeches, and memorials are presented with rigorous philological and historical accuracy, with collated variants, critical apparatus, and linguistic explanations in the footnotes. Each letter is accompanied by a detailed headnote summarizing its content, discussing the context, and providing information about existing copies." (Mirosława Hanusiewicz-Lavallee, in Journal of Jesuit Studies, 12, 2025, p. 165)

Victor Houliston is a Research Professor at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein, South Africa, and a visiting researcher at Campion Hall, Oxford. His edition and translation of Robert Persons’s De persecutione Anglicana was published in December 2023.

Thomas M. McCoog, SJ, sometime editor-in-chief at the Jesuit Historical Institute (Rome) and archivist of the British Province of the Society of Jesus (London), is superior of a Jesuit retirement home in Baltimore, Maryland. He is currently editing the proceedings of the conference commemorating the 400th anniversary of the English/British Province.

Ana Sáez‐Hidalgo is an Associate Professor of English at the Universidad de Valladolid. Her research focuses on Anglo-Spanish cultural and literary relations, exploring the cross-cultural dimensions of the textual and material exchanges between Spain and England and the circulation of knowledge, ideas, and objects through English Catholic exiles.

Javier Burrieza Sánchez is an Associate Professor of Modern History at the Universidad de Valladolid. He has published extensively on early modern Spanish history and is the author of Escultores y escultura procesional de la Semana Santa de Castilla y León (2017). His interest in the English Colleges in Spain is reflected in various works such as Una isla de Inglaterra in Castilla (2000).

Ginevra Crosignani, a graduate of the University of Rome, “La Sapienza,” is a specialist in religious history and in early modern Italian. She has taught at Caltech and at San Diego State University, and is now based in Rome, teaching at the Beda Pontifical College. Her research is focused on religious conformity in post-Reformation England and early modern Europe.