This selection from the most productive Christian pen of the nineteenth century is also an introduction to one of its most compelling and troubled minds. John Henry Newman (1801-91) was a dominant figure in both the Anglican and the Roman Catholic churches. His writings had an abiding impact on both communions, and contribute still to the spirit of ecumenicism.

This book concentrates on Newman's life and work up to 9 October 1845, the mid-point of his life and the moment he became a Roman Catholic. He was a prolific and subtle writer, a great prose artist whose sermons, tracts and polemics, together with a talent for organisation and an ability to inspire others to faith and action, launched the Oxford Movement and the controversies that still follow from it. The twelve years between 1833 and 1845 are among the most important for English Christianity, and they were shaped for the most part by the pen and energy of Newman, a rather shy Oxford don, whose enduring legacy was to restore to the Church of England its Catholic heritage. A great communicator, with a need for self-disclosure, he is both revealed and concealed in his writings.