Newman's Unquiet Grave

A problematic campaign to canonise Newman started fifty years ago. After many delays John Paul II declared him a 'Venerable'. Then Pope Benedict XVI, a keen student of Newman's works, pressed for his beatification. But was Newman a 'Saint'?

In Newman's Unquiet Grave John Cornwell (author of A Thief in the Night and Hitler's Pope) tells the story of the chequered attempts to establish Newman's sanctity against the background of major developments within Catholicism. His life was marked by personal feuds, self-absorption, accusations of professional and artistic narcissism, hypochondria, and same-sex friendships that at times bordered on the apparent homo-erotic.

John Cornwell investigates the process of Newman's elevation to sainthood to present a highly original and controversial new portrait of the great man's life and genius for a new generation of religious and non-religious readers alike.

A timely portrait of John Henry Newman, whose beatification is set for Summer 2009, dealing with the man's exceptional intellect and some of the sensational events surrounding his life and death.

Publishers Weekly

When John Henry Newman converted from Anglicanism to Roman Catholicism in 1845, it represented something of an anticlimax in the career of an Anglican divine and his efforts, through the influential Oxford Movement, to bring the English church back to its Catholic roots. A renowned scholar and thinker, Newman produced thousands of pages that some have considered the finest theological writing of his time. Even today, Newman continues to shape the thoughts of aspiring theologians. But as Cornwell, prolific author of works on Catholicism, suggests, the good cardinal had his detractors. The author suggests that there may be sufficient contradictions in, and perhaps enough unanswered questions about, his subject's life to call into question Newman's upcoming beatification, expected in September. Newman's spiritual and, indeed, philosophical journey serves as a fascinating template for understanding the 19th-century Catholic Church and its trajectories into England. This is a wonderfully realized study of a complex man, required reading for every student of English history and its rich Christian tradition. (Sept.)

John Cornwell is a journalist and author with a lifelong interest in literature, religion, and science. His books have included A Thief in the Night, Hitler's Pope, and Seminary Boy. In 1984 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and currently directs the Science and Human Dimension Project at Jesus College, Cambridge.