About Cardinal Newman
Published biographies and critical reviews of Newman's life and works run to hundreds of titles, in many languages. The collection has a large number of these, including many in English and several in German, French and other languages.
Of Newman's complete works, the Saint Mary's collection has nearly all, including many not published in the standard forty volume set. Among the additional works not readily available, the Library has Newman's sermons, both those preached as university sermons and plain sermons; and the original editions of articles published in such rare journals as the Rambler, the British Critic, and the Catholic University Gazette. While the Collection has none of Newman's manuscripts, it does contain numerous rare first editions, pamphlets and private editions of Newman's works. Outstanding among these are exemplars of The Undergraduate, Newman's first published work. With his friend J. W. Bowden, Newman edited and published six issues of The Undergraduate in 1819.
Newman's Reports as the first Rector of the Catholic University of Ireland, like all of his writings, are marked by a lucidity and directness rare in an essentially bureaucratic document. His reports of progress in obtaining accreditation of the Medical School, new acquisitions for the Libraries, and improvement in the preparation of students are interspersed with mentions of the need for funding and concerns over the deficiencies of students. Newman was Rector for three years, from 1854 to 1857. The collection has his Reports for all three academic years.
Another of the treasures of the Collection is a volume of Latin texts evidently gathered by Newman for his study and bound for him. Included in the small volume is a fifth century text of Saint Vincent of Lerins printed in 1613. At the point in the text where Saint Vincent establishes the Catholic canon ("quod ubique, quod semper, quod ab omnibus creditum est...") is a marginal note "vera!" in Newman's hand (p.18). Newman derived from the Vincentian canon the ideas of faithfulness to tradition and the progress of Catholic doctrine which became the hallmarks of his thought. Inscribed on the flyleaf: J. H. Newman, Oriel College.
