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

‘Ridiculously enjoyable’Tom Holland

ABook of the YearforThe Times,Mail on SundayandBBC 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.The Reverend Fergus Butler-Gallieis a young curate in the Church of England who once accidentally appeared onOnly 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.'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...'‘One of the best Christmas books of the past few years... both hilarious and unusually elegant in conception and execution.’‘Eye-popping tales of lunacy, debauchery and depravity…Butler-Gallie has done a splendid job presenting a smorgasbord of most peculiar parsons.’‘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.’‘Entertal³9