Ideas for an English Reformation Study, 2027-2031

I don’t know why I’m doing this right now, just an avid list-maker, I guess; but this is what I’m thinking for my English Reformation study in 2027-2031. It could take me up to 5 years to complete.

1) General -
Heretics and Believers, Marshall
English Reformers (Library of Christian Classics)
2) John Wyclif
John Wycliffe and His English Precursors, Gotthard Lechler
The Prosecution of John Wyclyf, Joseph H. Dahmus
The Lollard Bible, Margaret Deanesly
3) Beginnings -
Studies in the Making of the English Protestant Tradition, Rupp
The Beginnings of English Protestantism, Peter Marshall
England’s Earliest Protestants, Clebsch
4) The Oxford Reformers -
The Oxford Reformers: Colet, Erasmus and Thomas More, 1498, Seebohm
5) Tyndale -
Tyndale: A Biography, Daniell
Obedience of a Christian Man, Tyndale
6) Cromwell -
Thomas Cromwell: A Revolutionary Life, MacCulloch
7) Cardinal Wolsey -
Wolsey: The Life of King Henry VIII’s Cardinal, Matusiak
Two Early Tudor Lives: The Life & Death of Cardinal Wolsey, by Cavendish, and, The Life of Sir Thomas More, by Roper
8) Thomas More -
Thomas More, Marius
The Life of Thomas More, Ackroyd
Memoir of Sir Thomas More: with extracts from his works and letters (1834 ed.)(avail. from Google Books, saved to iBooks in pdf format)
Saint Thomas More: Selected Writings (Vintage Spiritual Classics)
Utopia, More (Norton Critical Edition)
9) Fiction -
Wolf Hall, Mantel
10) Thomas Cranmer -
Thomas Cranmer, MacCulloch
Cranmer and the English Reformation, Hutchinson
Thomas Cranmer, Theologian, Bromiley
The Book of Common Prayer, the Texts of 1549, 1559 & 1662 (Oxford World Classics), Cranmer
11) Martyrs -
Foxe’s Book of Martyrs, Foxe (Hendrickson)
Salvation at Stake: Christian Martyrdom in Early Modern Europe, Gregory
12) Atlantic Slavery -
The Intellectual Origins of American Slavery: English Ideas in the Early Modern Atlantic World, John Samuel Harpham
13) The Tudors -
England Under the Tudors, Elton
The Tudor Constitution: Documents and Commentary, Elton
14) Henry VIII -
The King’s Reformation: Henry VIII and the Remaking of the English Church, Bernard
15) Dissolution of the Monasteries -
The Last Divine Office: Henry VIII and the Dissolution of the Monasteries, Moorhouse
The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History, Clark
16) Tudor Women and Children -
Life and Death of Anne Boleyn, Ives
The Boy King: Edward VI and the Protestant Reformation, MacCulloch
England’s Boy King: Diary of Edward VI, 1547-1553, Edward VI, ed. North
Mary, Queen of Scots, Guy
Katherine Parr: Complete Works and Correspondence
17) Primary Documents -
Original Letters Relative to the English Reformation, Robinson, ed. (2 vols.)(Internet Archive)
18) Eamon Duffy, historian -
The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England, 1400-1580
The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village
Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor
Reformation Divided: Catholics, Protestants, and the Conversion of England
Saints, Sacrilege, and Sedition: Religion and Conflict in the Tudor Reformations
A People’s Tragedy: Studies in Reformation
19) Conclusions -
The Impact of the English Reformation, 1500-1640, Marshall
All Things Made New: The Reformation and Its Legacy, MacCulloch

— 46 titles, 47 volumes

I’m still open to suggestions about this list. I’ve made some changes due to a bibliography I found on The Gospel Coalition site. I’ve referenced it in the thread, “Bibliographies from The Gospel Coalition and Kenneth Scott Latourette.”

Thanks especially to AnnieMod for all her great suggestions. This list owes a lot to her influence. We’ll be starting this list sometime in 2026? or 2027?

Last updated 06/06/2026.

>2 Foxhunter:
Going deep, I guess. Thanks, Foxhunter!

Two years, I think. Or maybe three. We’ll see.

The Eamon Duffy alone is more than six months.

It is a lot of books.

: )

Not sure where (if) this would fit, but the Marprelate controversy?

Just read the Wikipedia article and it looks like an interesting incident. May be hard to find books about it though. Maybe easier to find books on Elizabethan Puritans in general.

Due to the fact that the Marprelate controversy happened during Elizabeth’s reign, I might also want to wait until the year I’m planning on Elizabeth I and The Faerie Queene (epic poem) by Spenser. That will come after the 2 years on the English Reformation.

Crypto-Willobie, let me know if you find books about the Marprelate controversy that are reasonably available. I’m interested in following up on this. I seem to be buying a lot of books for this study, but I refuse to pay $150 for a single book, even if it’s pertinent. I feel like that’s just too expensive.

Thanks for posting. Hope to hear from you again.

>6 Crypto-Willobie:
Did some research on books about the “Marprelate controversy,” and I’m posting it separately, Crypto-Willobie. You may already be familiar, but this topic is well worth remembering here, especially when we do Elizabeth.

Thanks for your comment.

>8 geoffreymeadows:

These are the 18 titles in my library tagged 'Marprelate'.
https://www.librarything.com/catalog/Crypto-Willobie?&collection=-1&deep... (You can ignore the first one which is a general collection with just one Marprelate item in it.)

Comments on a few:

The Martin Marprelate Tracts: A Modernized and Annotated Edition. 2008.
This is the latest edition of the tracts themselves by a good scholar. The paperback is available on Alibris for about $40 or on Amazon for about $45.

Martin Marprelate, gentleman : Master Job Throkmorton laid open in his colors. 1981
This is a revealing examination of one of the writers of the Marprelate tracts themselves. You can find it on-line for as little as $12.

An historical introduction the the Marprelate tracts : a chapter in the evolution of religious and civil liberty in England. 1909.
Decent overview, though a little dated. Also on-line for about $12.

Some of the most interesting Marprelate material from a literary standpoint are the ANTI-Marprelate tracts published in reply, also anonymously. Two of the writers have been identified as the Elizabethan playwrights Thomas Nashe and John Lyly, and supposedly others were written by playwrights Anthony Munday and Robert Greene but if so their contributions have not been identified.

I did my Marprelate reading about a dozen to fifteen years ago so many details are not fresh in my mind.

>9 Crypto-Willobie:
You probably have more books on this than almost any library. Maybe the British Library has more.

I may go ahead and buy a few of these books, (especially The Martin Marprelate Tracts, ed. Black; and Pap with an Hatchet) while they’re available, but I won’t get to (reading) them for quite a while.

If there’s anything you’d like to add, let us know.

Thanks again for bringing this up.