Another Great Anthology from OUP

After highlighting the forthcoming Firmly I Believe and Truly, a new anthology of works by Catholic authors in England from the 15th to the 20th centuries, I thought of this very helpful volume edited by Robert S. Miola. It is also available from Oxford University Press:

Early Modern Catholicism makes available in modern spelling and punctuation substantial Catholic contributions to literature, history, political thought, devotion, and theology in the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Rather than perpetuate the usual stereotypes and misinformation, it provides a fresh look at Catholic writing long suppressed, marginalized, and ignored. The anthology gives back voices to those silenced by prejudice, exile, persecution, or martyrdom while attention to actual texts challenges conventional beliefs about the period.

The anthology is divided into eight sections entitled Controversies, Lives and Deaths, Poetry, Instructions and Devotions, Drama, Histories, Fiction, and Documents, and includes sixteen black and white illustrations from a variety of Early Modern sources. Amongst the selections are texts which illuminate the role of women in recusant community and in the Church; the rich traditions of prayer and mysticism; the theology and politics of martyrdom; the emergence of the Catholic Baroque in literature and art; and the polemical battles fought within the Church and against its enemies. Early Modern Catholicism also provides a context that redefines the established canons of Early Modern England, including such figures as Edmund Spenser, John Donne, John Milton, William Shakespeare, and Ben Jonson.

Find more of the Table of Contents here--here's just a sample:

Controversies

Desiderius Erasmus: On the New Testament, 1516
Desiderius Erasmus: On Free Will, 1524
Thomas More: A Dialogue Concerning Heresies, 1530
Edmund Plowden: A Treatise on Mary, Queen of Scots, 1566
Nicholas Sander: A Treatise of the Images of Christ and of his Saints, 1567
Edmund Campion: A Letter to the Privy Council, 1580
Edmund Campion: The Tower Debates, 1581
Alban Langdale: Reasons why Catholics may go to Church, 1580
William Allen: A True, Sincere, and Modest Defence of English Catholics, 1584
William Allen: A Declaration of the Sentence and Deposition of Elizabeth, 1588
Henry Garnet: Of Indulgence or Pardons, 1592-6
Henry Garnet: A Treatise of Equivocation, c.1598
Juan de Mariana: On the King and the Education of the King, 1599
Robert Bellarmine: On the Authority of the Pope against William Basday, 1610
Jane Owen: An Antidote against Purgatory, 1634

Lives and Deaths
Augustine of Hippo (354-430)
Teresa of Ávila (1515-82)
Thomas More (1477-1535)
Edmund Campion (1540-81)
Margaret Clitherow (1556?-86)
William Weston (1550-1615)
Alexander Rawlins (1555?-95) and Henry Walpole (1558-95)
Toby Matthew (1577-1655)
Mary Ward (1585-1645)

Miola's Introduction, and you can read part of it with the Amazon.com Look Inside! feature, is excellent. Highly recommended.