The Great Red Dragon; or, The Master-Key to Popery

About this book

A Protestant polemicist sets out to expose what he believes lies behind the public face of the Roman Catholic Church. Anthony Gavin fills his Great Red Dragon with allegations about clerical power and religious deception.

This is an eighteenth-century anti-Catholic work, and its accusations must be read critically as products of sectarian conflict, not accepted as reliable descriptions of Catholic practice. The title's monstrous biblical image signals the intensity of the author's attack. Historically, the book illustrates the uses of fear and scandal in religious controversy.