Robert Persons S.J., The Christian Directory (1582): The First Booke of the Christian Exercise, Appertayning to Resolution

This volume presents a critical edition of the influential and popular first version of The Christian Directory , by the Elizabethan Jesuit leader, Robert Persons. It was written during and immediately after the English Mission of 1580-1, which ended with the martyrdom of his companion Edmund Campion. Person’s work, originally entitled The First Booke of the Christian Exercise, Appertayning to Resolution , attempts to persuade the reader to be resolved in the service of God. It deals with the motives and obstacles to such resolution. This edition includes full apparatus of the alterations made to Person’s work by Edmund Bunny, whose Protestant edition became an Elizabethan bestseller. It should be of particular use to historians of the Catholic reformation and students of early modern English prose.