ABSTRACT
Even many who have not read a page of his writings are aware that John Henry Newman is the author of both one of the most renowned autobiographies, the Apologia Pro Vita Sua (1864) and one of the most influential works of religious philosophy, An Essay in Aid of a Grammar of Assent (1870). Newman’s gifts as an autobiographer and a philosopher pervade virtually the entire corpus of his writings and are apparent in his contributions to fiction, poetry, theology, history, and other branches of literature. Newman did not regard himself as primarily an autobiographer or a philosopher; and it is fitting that his greatest admirers should remember him as, first and foremost, a devout witness for the Christian faith, and that his more open-minded detractors should regard him as, above all, a shrewd and effective ecclesiastical controversialist.
