Foxe's Book of Martyrs Variorum Edition

John Foxe (1517-87) was one of the most influential writers of the English Reformation. In the forty years between 1547 and his death, he produced some forty works in English and Latin. However, both in his lifetime and since then, he has been principally known for only one of them, The Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs. <br> John Foxe fled to the Continent during the reign of Mary I, and on his return, wrote a history of the English Protestant martyrs from the 14th century to his own time. Usually known as The Book of Martyrs, it traces the triumph of Protestantism through the sufferings of English Protestants. <br> Some four hundred copies of Foxes editions of 1563, 1570, 1576 and 1583 remain, but most are defective to some extent, and all bear their original imperfections. Although microfilms of all the four original editions were available, and were adequate for general use, they too had their imperfections. The copies selected for filming were damaged and incomplete and many running heads and marginalia were omitted during photography. Moreover, these images were devoid of any commentary or apparatus, and well over a hundred years of Reformation scholarship had elapsed since Pratt completed his work. <br> Also a number of bowdlerised and abbreviated editions had been published in the twentieth century, particularly in the United States, and although there was little danger of these deceiving serious scholars, the proposal suggested that the time was ripe for the full text to reappear with a modern commentary.<br> It had also been recognised for some time that the Acts and Monuments is a major work of sixteenth century scholarship and a significant influence upon the development of the national identity. A reliable scholarly edition was urgently required. <br> In 1993 the British Academy established this project to produce a new edition. Originally, a paper copy was envisaged, however the scale of the project soon became too large to make this feasible. The 1583 edition alone is densely packed with information, including reference to hundreds of sources, some of them imperfectly identified. In scale it runs to nearly three million words. The Committee decided to switch its objective from a print edition to CD-ROM, which in turn would make a variorum edition feasible, embracing all the four original texts.<br> Due to technical developments and innovations in 2002, the committee, with the approval of the British Academy, decided to transfer the publishing medium from CD-ROM to an online edition.<br>约翰·福克斯（John Foxe，1517-1587）是英国宗教改革时期最具影响力的作家之一。在1547年至其去世的四十年间，他创作了约四十部英语与拉丁语作品。但无论在其生前还是后世，他仅以一部作品为人熟知，即《英国殉道者言行与大事记》（The Acts and Monuments of the English Martyrs）。<br>玛丽一世（Mary I）在位期间，福克斯流亡欧陆，返英后撰写了一部从14世纪至其所处时代的英国新教殉道者史。该书通常被称为《殉道者之书》（The Book of Martyrs），通过英国新教信徒的苦难历程展现了新教的胜利。<br>目前留存有1563、1570、1576及1583年福克斯原版的约四百部副本，但多数均存在不同程度的残损，且均保留了原版的固有瑕疵。尽管此前已制作了上述四个原版的缩微胶片（microfilms），且可满足一般使用需求，但这类缩微胶片同样存在缺陷：用于拍摄的副本已受损且不完整，拍摄过程中遗漏了大量页眉（running heads）与页边批注（marginalia）。此外，这些图像未附带任何注释或辅助材料，且自普拉特（Pratt）完成其研究以来，宗教改革学术研究已历经百余年的发展。<br>20世纪亦有诸多删节改编版与缩写版问世，尤以美国为甚。尽管这类版本不足以误导严肃的学术研究者，但有提案指出，如今正是推出带有现代注释的完整版本的恰当时机。<br>长期以来，学界已然认识到《英国殉道者言行与大事记》是16世纪学术研究的重要著作，且对英国民族身份的建构产生了深远影响，因此亟需一部可靠的学术性全新版本。<br>1993年，英国学术院（British Academy）启动该项目以打造全新版本。最初项目计划推出纸质版，但很快因项目体量过于庞大而难以实现。仅1583年版便内容庞杂，涉及数百处来源引用，其中部分来源的标识尚不完善，全文篇幅近三百万词。项目委员会遂决定将出版形式从纸质版转为只读光盘（CD-ROM），此举亦使得整合四个原版文本的校勘本（variorum edition）成为可能。<br>2002年，得益于技术发展与革新，经英国学术院批准，委员会决定将出版介质从只读光盘转为在线版本。