New Perspectives on Newman and the Oxford Movement‪.‬

John Henry Newman and the Oxford Movement continue to generate critical interest, which to some must seem remarkable, for Newman was not the kind of man whose life makes compelling biography nor the Oxford Movement an event likely to prompt compelling history. But together they addressed the most significant religious issue of the nineteenth century: Whether Christianity would preserve its spiritual identity or be diluted and absorbed into an increasingly secular culture. Interestingly, many of the best works on Newman and the Oxford Movement have appeared on or around significant centenary events. 1933, for example, the centenary of the Oxford Movement's beginning, was marked by the publication of Christopher Dawson's The Spirit of the Oxford Movement, an objective, large-minded assessment that remains a standard in the field. 1945, the centenary of Newman's conversion to Catholicism, saw the publication of C.F. Harrold's John Henry Newman: An Expository and Critical Study of His Mind, Thought and Art, still the most methodical, close-grained, analysis of Newman's work. In 1963,a year before the centenary of the Apologia's publication, Meriol Trevor finished her two-volume biography of Newman, the most thorough since Wilfrid Ward's fifty years earlier. In 1966, just two years after the same centenary, Stephen Dessain, who spent years editing Newman's vast correspondence, published a particularly sensitive introductory study. Now, in 1991, having reached the centenary of Newman's death, three new books are available which contribute in different ways to our understanding of Newman, the Oxford Movement, and their relevance to post-Reformation England and Europe: Owen Chadwick's The Spirit of the Oxford Movement." Tractarian Essays (Cambridge University Press, 1990); Ian Ker's John Henry Newman: A Biography (The Clarendon Press, 1988); and Brian Martin's John Henry Newman: His Life & Work (Paulist Press, 1990).