FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS: A History of the Lives, Sufferings, and Triumphant Deaths of the Early Christian and Protestant Martyrs

For four and a half centuries, Foxe's Book of Martyrs has been the Protestant world's testament to those who died rather than renounce their faith. First published in English in 1563, John Foxe's Acts and Monuments documented the deaths of nearly three hundred men and women burned under the reign of Queen Mary I, and placed them within a larger history of Christian persecution stretching from the early church to the Reformation.

At the centre of the book stand the Oxford Martyrs: Nicholas Ridley, Hugh Latimer, and Thomas Cranmer, burned in Oxford between October 1555 and March 1556. Their stories anchor the Protestant martyrological tradition. Latimer's words at the stake, "We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace in England as I trust shall never be put out," and Cranmer's gesture of holding his right hand into the flames first, are among the most powerful moments in Christian history.

This Merrick Press annotated edition presents the curated complete text in the abridged form that has served general readers for more than a century, based on the nineteenth-century Forbush and Cumming editions derived from Fox's original. The accounts of the Oxford Martyrs are given in full, together with the stories of William Tyndale, John Wycliffe, Jan Hus, George Wishart, Anne Askew, John Bradford, and dozens of lesser-known men and women from every station of life.

A newly written Historical Introduction (over 3,000 words) sets the account in context, from Foxe's life and exile to the influence of his work across the English-speaking world. Biographical Notes on the principal martyrs are provided at the close of the volume.