THE P RTAL
May 2015
Page 9
Thoughts on Newman
Books, Books, Books!
Dr Stephen Morgan looks at his library of works by Newman
Over my
years of studying Newman, I have acquired more books by, on or about him than I care
to admit. They currently take up nearly nine yards of bookshelf space but there’s always room for one
more, especially if the new book fills a notable gap in the collection. Alongside the first editions of The
Arians, An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine, and Apologia pro vita sua the volumes of Newman’s
Letters and Diaries, edited with a level of care and attention by Charles Stephen Dessain, Thomas Gornall and
Ian Ker, must rank amongst my most treasured. There are, in total, thirty-one volumes but they are not all
readily available. Until Thursday of this week, my bookshelves boasted twenty-seven of the thirty-one: the
four I did not have being rare and often eye-wateringly expensive.
own study was not to be passed up:
that evening’s business could always
wait. Time spent in such a pastime
rarely fails to yield serendipity’s
abundant harvest and Thursday
evening’s diversion was no exception.
In amongst letters to Frederick Faber
about the risks of a cholera outbreak
– “Pray institute a continual inquiry
if there is any bowel disorder among
you . . . and if so, have the culprit out
of London at once” (17th July 1849) –
and the usual correspondence with
hesitant converts – “It makes me
very melancholy to think that you are
delaying . . . I will not believe that your
Amongst titles as varied as Biblia
own heart does not tell you where the
Sacra Nova Vulgata, Panzer Attack
truth is” (to Mrs Henry Wilberforce,
and Ten Tunes for Miss Lucy were
three consecutive volumes of the Letters and Diaries, 18th April 1850) – was the following spiritual counsel,
including one of the precious volumes that I lacked. a jewel of faith, trust and abandonment to Divine
Refusing a donation – which would have had to be Providence:
considerable if it were to be commensurate with the
We are all in God’s Hands, and He orders us
prices being asked by booksellers for this volume on
about, each in his own way; happy for us, only, if
the rare occasions when one becomes available – my
we can realise this, and submit as children to a dear
friend gave me Volume XIII with nothing more than a
Father, whatever He may please to do with us (to
promise to keep him in my prayers.
John Edward Bowden, 21st September 1849).
I had not the heart to tell him that he is rarely out
Anthony Powell entitled the tenth of his Dance to
of them but thanked him profusely and went home
clutching the book in my hand as firmly as a child with the Music of Time novels, Books do furnish a room.
They do certainly that but, by God’s grace, they not
a particularly welcome birthday present.
infrequently also furnish an answer to an unsettled
rare and often
heart. For the moment Volume XIII sits on my table
eye-wateringly expensive
awaiting the creation of more shelf space but it has
Although the letters in Volume XIII, covering the already earned its place amongst its companion
period from January 1849 to June 1850, were well volumes. Before I call the carpenter, you might just see
known to me from hours spent in the University library, if you have a spare Volume XXI, XXII or XXV needing
the opportunity to dip into them in the luxury of my a new and, I promise, loving home!
I had all-but given up hope of ever
obtaining any of them: that was before
the intervention of a priest friend. On
moving into his new parish he had
found a stock of various books about
the house: an eclectic mix of titles of
various vintages, displaying almost
no discernable pattern of subjects or
organising principle. His predecessor,
who had been there for fifteen years
and more, had confirmed that they
were books that had been in the house
when he had moved in and he certainly
didn’t want them.
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