Butler, Alban

Butler, Alban, 1710–73, English Roman Catholic priest, compiler of lives of the saints. He was educated at Douai and was president of the English seminary at Saint-Omer. His monumental work, The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints (4 vol. in 7, 1756–59), was the basis for the enlarged edition, The Lives of the Saints (12 vol., 1926–38), and for the completely revised work, Butler's Lives of the Saints (ed. by Herbert Thurston, S.J., and Donald Attwater, 4 vol., 1956), which is a standard, popular reference book.