A Field Guide to the English Clergy: A Compendium of Diverse Eccentrics, Pirates, Prelates and Adventurers; All Anglican, Some Even Practising

by The Revd Fergus Butler-Gallie

Overview

‘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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786074423
Publisher:	Oneworld Publications
Publication date:	10/04/2018
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	192
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is a young curate in the Church of England who once accidentally appeared on Only Connect. He holds a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of Oxford and a bachelor’s degree in theology from the University of Cambridge. He is (according to his own taxonomy) a Bon Viveur first and foremost, with a soupçon of Roguishness and Prodigality. This is his first book.
The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallie is a clergyman who has served in London and Liverpool and the author of A Field Guide to the English Clergy, a Best Book of the Year for The Times, Mail on Sunday and BBC History, and Priests de la Resistance!, a Spectator Best Book of the Year. @_F_B_G_

Read an Excerpt

'There are still those alive today who recall the image of the Anglican clergyman, running after the camels across the missile testing ground, a pair of fake breasts bouncing against his face and a tiara on his head...'

What People are Saying About This

Tom Holland

‘This is a ridiculously enjoyable book: funny, compassionate, and wonderfully well-written.’

The Rt Revd David Wilbourne

‘A delightful, sympathetic, humorous and earthed cocktail of quirky English clergy.’

Interviews

‘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.’

Editorial Reviews

‘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

‘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

‘One of the best Christmas books of the past few years... both hilarious and unusually elegant in conception and execution.’

Spectator Marcus Berkmann

‘Some of the most riotous misbehaviour in Church of England history is chronicled in this sprightly book.’

Daily Mail

‘Fabulously enjoyable compendium of the Anglican Church’s most eccentric ministers – who prove to be very eccentric indeed.’’s Digest

‘This is a ridiculously enjoyable book: funny, compassionate, and wonderfully well-written.’

Tom Holland

‘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.’

Spectator Harry Mount

‘Eye-popping tales of lunacy, debauchery and depravity...Butler-Gallie has done a splendid job presenting a smorgasbord of most peculiar parsons.’

Daily Mail Sebastian Shakespeare

‘A delightful, sympathetic, humorous and earthed cocktail of quirky English clergy.’

The Rt Revd David Wilbourne

‘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

‘Fabulously enjoyable compendium of the Anglican Church’s most eccentric ministers – who prove to be very eccentric indeed.’

Reader’s Digest

‘A group biography of ecclesiastical nuttiness... All gloriously mad.’

Books of the Year 2018 The Times

‘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