24 October 2015

S Edmund Campion, Priest and Martyr

Thank you to everyone who got in touch with me so generously. The first person to do so was the person whom I begged, of her kindness, to send me the book. I am very grateful; it is well worth reading. I haven't finished it yet: but these things strike me: Kilroy has painstakingly reconstructed what the London bookselling quarter was like in the years Campion grew up there ... and, likewise, the Oxford and the Prague that the Saint knew. If you weren't particularly intersed in S Edmund but in those vignettes, you would like the book. The author has also dug up a lot of hitherto unknown archival material. Kilroy is also a Latinist, so he not only gives accurate translations from the Latin but also understands S Edmund's allusions to classical literature ... you just wouldn't believe how many writers think they know Latin but don't and how painful it is to read their books. And the authors are allegedly academics, and the books emerge from respectable academic printing houses.

I have taken the liberty of noting the email addresses of those whose immensely kind offers I did not take up in the hope that they will not feel that I am both arrogant and grasping if I get in touch with them about another book which I feel would help me. But do remember (Mr A T!) that you need to send me your email address.

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