Focusing upon the arguments Newman uses to define Catholicism against the hostility of English protestants, this book is a reader’s guide to the books Newman published soon after his own conversion: Mixed Congregations; Difficulties of Anglicans; Present Position of Catholics, and his two novels. While the arguments advanced in Difficulties of Anglicans and Present Position of Catholics are confrontationally direct, his novels Loss and Gain and Callista respond to the attacks of Elizabeth Harris’ From Oxford to Rome and Charles Kingsley’s Hypatia by the indirection which typifies Newman’s fictional rhetoric.
Lams (emeritus English, California State U.-Chico) offers a guide to some of the less discussed works by John Henry Newman (1801-90), which he wrote shortly after converting to Catholicism. He emphasizes the structure and conduct of Newman's arguments through which he hoped to illuminate his readers about his new religion and to refute accusations against it by the Anglican establishment. Annotation 2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
