A history of the lives, sufferings and triumphant deaths of the early Christian and the Protestant martyrs.

Foxe, John, John Foxe's Book of Martyrs. Actes and Monuments of Matters Most Speciall and Memorable, the second edition of Foxe's Book of Martyrs Variorum Edition Online (version 1.1 - summer 2006).
This is "the revised version (v.1.1) of Foxe's Book of Martyrs Variorum Edition Online. This [free online] edition contains the full text of three of the four editions (1563, 1570, 1583). The 1570 edition is missing books 3 and 4. These will be added in subsequent versions."
http://www.hrionline.ac.uk/johnf...
Other editions: Acts and Monuments or Foxe's Book of Martyrs, 1554, 8 volumes (Cerlox Bound Photocopy Series and Hardback Bound. Edmonton, AB, Canada: Still Waters Revival Books, 1843-49 edition).
And the Early English Books Online (EEOB) digitized copy of the eight volume work.
" 'No book ever inflicted a wound so deep and incurable on the Romish system of superstition and bloody persecution . . . (it) was placed in . . . all churches and chapels throughout the kingdom, by order of Queen Elizabeth.' (Smith, Select Memoirs, p. 245). Contains much information not found in any of the liberally edited and severely shortened editions of this classic work which are in print today. Covering martyrs from the early church through to Foxe's day, it was one of the most influential books of the sixteenth century! It overflows with faith building testimony of the power of God to overcome the most cruel and barbarous acts of human depravity and demonic cruelty. 6890 pages. A very rare set, now back in print after 150 years!" -- SWRB
"After the Bible itself, no book so profoundly influenced early Protestant sentiment as the BOOK OF MARTYRS. Even in our time it is still a living force. It is more than a record of persecution. It is an arsenal of controversy, a storehouse of romance, as well as a source of edification." -- James Miller Dodds, English Prose
"When one recollects that until the appearance of the PILGRIM'S PROGRESS the common people had almost no other reading matter except the BIBLE and FOX'S BOOK OF MARTYRS, we can understand the deep impression that this book produced; and how it served to mold the national character. Those who could read for themselves learned the full details of all the atrocities performed on the Protestant reformers; the illiterate could see the rude illustrations of the various instruments of torture, the rack, the gridiron, the boiling oil, and then the holy ones breathing out their souls amid the flames. Take a people just awakening to a new intellectual and religious life; let several generations of them, from childhood to old age, pore over such a book, and its stories become traditions as individual and almost as potent as songs and customs on a nation's life." -- Douglas Campbell, The Puritan in Holland, England, and America
"If we divest the book of its accidental character of feud between churches, it yet stands, in the first years of Elizabeth's reign, a monument that marks the growing strength of a desire for spiritual freedom, defiance of those forms that seek to stifle conscience and fetter thought." -- Henry Morley, English Writers
"John Foxe was a prince among believers. He had his printing press on a cart, and had often to print at night, moving his press before dawn to escape capture and burning at the stake. He never faltered in his purpose to leave a voluminous written witness to the power of the Lord Jesus Christ to keep His saints in love and peace." -- Jay P. Green, Sr.
A Christian classic. ( )

This updated and abridged version of a Christian classic is a quick, but powerful read. One cannot read this without seeing both God's grace and the loving devotion of His children. ( )

A classic that should be in the library of every believer. These amazing accounts make me both thankful and somewhat ashamed when I consider what our ancestors had to go through for the faith that we take so for granted in the west including the ability to read the Bible in English. It's also interesting to realize as you read this that the primary persecutors of Christians after the fall of the Roman Empire were those who also called themselves Christians (primarily from the church at Rome). ( )