The Correspondence and Unpublished Papers of Robert Persons, SJ, ed. Victor Houliston, Ginevra Crosignani, and Thomas M. McCoog, SJ (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, 2017).
This chapter examines the volume on the letters and papers of the English Jesuit Robert Persons (1546–1610) — the most prominent of the leaders of the early English Mission — edited by Victor Houliston, Ginevra Crosignani, and Thomas M. McCoog, SJ. This volume covers the period in Persons's life from shortly after his expulsion from Balliol College in 1574 to the run up of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The letters in between give a first-hand account of a wide range of crucial events. They cover the conflicts between the Welsh and the English at the Venerable English College in Rome. They also give more than a glimpse into the fateful mission of Persons and Edmund Campion to England in 1580–1581. Letters usefully place this endeavour within the context of global Jesuit missions. The documents show the elitism of the Jesuits, preoccupied above all with the conversion of the gentry. The chapter then considers a number of considerable challenges faced by the editors in putting this correspondence together.