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Thomas Anthony Birrell (1924–2011) was a man of many parts. For most of his working life he was Professor of English and American Literature in the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, where he was famous for his lively, humoristic and thought-provoking lectures. He was the author of some very popular surveys of English Literature in Dutch, but – first and foremost – he was a bibliographer and a historian.His scholarly oeuvre is extensive and includes such highlights as English Monarchs and their Books (London 1986), a study of the Old Royal Library. However, many of his publications are hidden in occasional publications, periodicals and introductions to books no longer in print. That is why a – posthumous – selection of his bibliographical essays appeared in 2013, entitled Aspects of Book Culture (Ashgate 2013), and that is why it was decided to bring out a companion volume containing a selection of his essays in the field of recusant history.The present edition contains fourteen of Birrell's articles published between 1950 and 2006. They all demonstrate his bibliographical expertise, his in-depth knowledge of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English Catholic history and his absolute determination to examine every scrap of archival material that might shed light on the episodes he was investigating. But, perhaps most important of all, he combined his scholarship with an intense interest in the individual lives that shape and are shaped by history, so the lasting impression that these articles will make is the sense of getting close to a whole series of personalities caught up in the turmoil of their time.Aspects of Recusant History was edited by Jos Blom, Frans Korsten and Frans Blom, all three former students of Tom Birrell and, both individually and collectively, authors and editors of a whole range of important book historical publications. (CS1092).

This volume includes two early seventeenth-century translations of Roman Catholic books by English recusant nuns - Catherine Greenbury (a Franciscan) and Mary Percy (a Benedictine). To practise their faith on the continent both these women fled Elizabethan England where Roman Catholic practice had been outlawed under pain of severe penalty (even death). Catherine Greenbury was born at York into a wealthy upper middle-class family but left England after the death of her husband, shortly after the birth of her daughter in or around 1616. After establishing herself in Brussels in a convent dedicated to St Elizabeth, she became its first elected'Mother'in 1626. During her early years here she translated the work included in this volume - François van den Broecke's biography in Dutch of the saintly Queen Elizabeth of Portugal. A comparison of Greenbury's version with the Dutch text shows not only that the translation is very competent and faithful, but also that she takes the editorial freedom to improve the text. Lady Mary Percy, daughter of Thomas Percy the seventh Earl of Northumberland, left England for Flanders and in 1598 she founded a Benedictine convent in Brussels especially for Englishwomen. Here Mary Percy translated a 1598 French edition of Breve compendio, by the Italian Jesuit Achille Gagliardi with his student Isabella Berinzaga, a mystical handbook which guides the reader through a series of elaborately defined stages striving towards'deiformitie'- a state in which the soul is'united unto the will of God'.

The declarations and ordinances made upon the rule of our holy mother S.Clare is an English translation of papal pronouncements upon the rules governing the convents of the Franciscan Order of St Clare. Elizabeth Evelinge's 176-page English version was published by one of the most prolific presses of the 17th-century English Roman Catholic exiles, the English College Press at St Omer. The edition, which was presumably very limited, was meant for English nuns living in monasteries in Flanders and Northern France. At her death, Elizabeth Evelinge was described as having'a more polish'd way of writing above her sex. Her translation of The declarations at the age of just 25, testifies to her skills. The copy of the text reproduced here is that held at the Franciscan Library at Killiney.

Thomas Anthony Birrell (1924-2011) was a man of many parts. For most of his working life he was Professor of English Literature in the University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands, where he was famous for his lively, humoristic and thought-provoking lectures. He was the author of some very popular literary surveys in Dutch, one of which - a history of English literature - has had seven editions so far. However, first and foremost he was a bibliographer and a book historian. The present collection contains fifteen of his book-historical articles, two reviews and one published version of a lecture for the illustrious'Association Internationale de Bibliophilie'. The lecture - with a wealth of illustrations - about the British Library as the'Custodian of the Unique'gives one a sense of Birrell's ability to present an audience with a complicated topic in comprehensible, but not simplified, terms. The reviews serve as a statement of principle of how to tackle the subject of'English readers and books'and the standards that ought to apply. The articles demonstrate Tom Birrell's in-depth knowledge, dedication and scholarship. He once said that he felt that he could have talked to the 17th-century London booksellers on an equal footing and his work convinces one that they would have enjoyed these conversations. Aspects of Book Culture was edited by Birrell's former pupil, colleague, friend and fellow-bibliographer Jos Blom.