Publishing Subversive Texts in Elizabeth England and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth offers recent research in book history by analysing the impact of early modern censorship on book circulation and information exchange in Elizabethan England and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. In fourteen articles, the various aspects of early modern subversive publishing and impact of censorship on the intellectual and cultural exchange in both England and Poland-Lithuania are thoroughly discussed. The book is divided into three main parts. In the first part, the presence and impact of British recusants in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth are discussed. Part two deals with subversive publishing and its role on the intellectual culture of the Elizabethan Settlement. Part three deals with the impact of national censorship laws on book circulation to the Continent.

Examining Catholic elaboration on the relationship between state and Church in late Elizabethan and Jacobean England, this book casts light on the ways in which a distinctive religious minority was able to adapt itself within a singular political context.

During his lifetime, the Jesuit priest Robert Persons (1546-1610) was arguably the leading figure fighting for the re-establishment of Catholicism in England. Whilst his colleague Edmund Campion may now be better known it was Persons's tireless efforts that kept the Jesuit mission alive during the difficult days of Elizabeth's reign. In this new study, Persons's life and phenomenal literary output are analysed and put into the broader context of recent Catholic scholarship. The book bridges the gap between historical studies, on the one hand, and literary studies on the other, by concentrating on Persons's contribution as a writer to the polemical culture of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. As well as discussing his wider achievements as leader of the English Jesuits - founding three seminaries for English priests, corresponding regularly with Catholic activists in England, writing over thirty books, holding the post of rector of the English College in Rome, and being a trusted consultant to the papacy on English affairs - this study looks in detail at what is arguably his greatest legacy, The First Booke of the Christian Exercise (more commonly known as the Book of Resolution). That book, first published in 1582, was to prove the cornerstone of Persons's missionary effort, and a popular work of Catholic devotion, running to several editions over the coming years. Although Persons was ultimately unsuccessful in his ambition to return England to the Catholic fold, the story of his life and works reveals much about the ecclesiastical struggle that gripped early modern Europe. By providing a thorough and up-to-date reassessment of Persons this study not only makes a significant contribution to our understanding of the polemical context of post Reformation Catholicism, but also of the Jesuit notion of the 'apostolate of writing'.