Description

‘Ridiculously enjoyable’ Tom Holland

A Book of the Year for The Times, Mail on Sunday and BBC History Magazine

The ‘Mermaid of Morwenstow’ excommunicated a cat for mousing on a Sunday. When he was late for a service, Bishop Lancelot Fleming commandeered a Navy helicopter. ‘Mad Jack’ swapped his surplice for leopard skin and insisted on being carried around in a coffin. And then there was the man who, like Noah’s evil twin, tried to eat one of each of God’s creatures…

In spite of all this they saw the church as their true calling. These portraits reveal the Anglican church in all its colourful madness.

Publisher Review

'One of the best Christmas books of the past few years... both hilarious and unusually elegant in conception and execution.' * Marcus Berkmann, Spectator * 'Eye-popping tales of lunacy, debauchery and depravity...Butler-Gallie has done a splendid job presenting a smorgasbord of most peculiar parsons.' * Sebastian Shakespeare, Daily Mail * 'We have...always kept a special haven for oddballs in the Church of England, as Fergus Butler-Gallie demonstrates in this entertaining compendium...Their foibles cover all bases from absentmindedness to epic drunkenness...I'm glad I read this one. It's a lot of fun.' * The Times * 'Entertainingly erudite...But it is also a surprisingly profound work...For all its mischief, Butler-Gallie's work of lightly worn erudition is a paean to a great English institution, finely tuned to the temper of its representatives, good, bad and indifferent. We should treasure it more.' * Literary Review * 'A humorous compendium of some of the oddball clergy who have served the Church over the centuries...These thumbnail portraits reveal a very broad church indeed.' * New Statesman * 'The Church of England has produced some real oddballs in its time, and this is an entertaining gallop through several centuries' worth of them...Butler-Gallie has done his homework, digging out some rare gems...This is the story not just of eccentrics, but also of a leisured age that is no more.' * Harry Mount, Spectator * 'Wonderfully entertaining...A hilarious yet thoughtful reminder that the Christian faith wasn't always thought incompatible with a sense of humour or a healthy bolshiness.' * Sunday Times * 'It may have the makings of a modern classic...Butler-Gallie chronicles not just Anglican follies, but also human weaknesses which we all share and with which we can perhaps sympathise.' * The Catholic Herald * 'This is a ridiculously enjoyable book: funny, compassionate, and wonderfully well-written.' -- Tom Holland 'A delightful, sympathetic, humorous and earthed cocktail of quirky English clergy.' -- The Rt Revd David Wilbourne