Ebook: The Avenel Dictionary of Saints

Reprint of the 1979 ed. published by Penguin Books, New York, under title: "The Penguin Dictionary of Saints".

Since the fourth century, A.D., people in all walks of Christian life have achieved sainthood: royalty and peasants, businessmen, beggars, and monks. Their common mark, says the author, is that they gave themselves to God heroically. No single, authoritative register of saints exists. Of the thousands of saints whose names are known, often little more is known. Of the longer accounts, many are combinations of history, legend, and outright fiction. Sifting through these voluminous records, Donald Attwater has culled over 750 biographies, making them as complete and historically accurate as possible.
The author, a Roman Catholic, wrote many books on saints, including the most recent revision of Butlers classic "Lives of the Saints". "The Avenel Dictionary of Saints" is an absorbing record of the individuals whose influence on so many cultures makes them historically, as well as religiously, significant.