Apologia Pro Vita Sua
Newman wrote this account of his religious opinions after a public accusation that he had been dishonest. It is therefore a defence, but also one of the clearest descriptions we have of how a mind changes slowly, through reading, friendship and doubt, rather than in a single conversion.
The prose is plain and unhurried, and the famous passages about conscience are less arguments than descriptions of experience. Read it as a historical document about the Oxford Movement, or read it as a model for anyone trying to explain a long intellectual life without pretending it was consistent.
Public-domain status
First published in 1864. In the United States, works published before 1930 are in the public domain. In the European Union the general term is the life of the author plus 70 years; John Henry Newman died in 1890, so this work has been free to republish there since 1961.
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