In  Newman and his Critics, the   final volume of Edward Short's highly acclaimed Newman trilogy, he shows what an enormous debt Newsman owed to his critics.  After all, they forced him to defend not only himself but his various positions on faith and reason, orthodoxy and liberalism, belief and unbelief.  They put him on his mettle.  Consequently, one of the underlying contentions of this final book of the trilogy is that if Newman had not done battle with so many of his contemporaries--in most cases, affable, charitable, edifying battle—he would never have become the great defender of the faith he became.  It was precisely because he spent so much time addressing those who did not share his faith that Newman became such a compelling apologist.   The critics featured in the book include such lively, contentious figures as Charles Kingsley and Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, as well as such former disciples as Mark Pattison and James Anthony Froude, all of whom found fault with what they regarded as Newman's insupportable faith.  At the same time, in contrast to these negative critics, the book features such favorable readers of Newman's work as Dean Church, Richard Holt Hutton, Wilfrid Ward and Ian Ker.   In all three books, Edward Short shows his readers that it is only by putting Newman in his immediate historical context, with his family, his contemporaries and his critics, that we can begin to understand the full  caritas  and genius of the man.    Edward Short is the author of Newman and his Contemporaries , and Newman and his Family , both now reissued by Gracewing in uniform editions to the present volume, as well as Newman and History . The first volume of his collected essays and reviews, Adventures in the Book Pages , was acclaimed by the Catholic Herald as "wise, witty and entertaining." His critical edition of the first volume of Newman's Difficulties of Anglicans introduces and annotates the lectures that Newman delivered in London in 1850, which, taken together, constitute a dress rehearsal for his Apologia Pro Vita Sua .  Mr. Short also edited the Saint Mary's Book of Christian Verse (2022), which Prof. Emma Mason of Warwick University called "a mesmerizingly beautiful anthology." His latest collection, What the Bells Sang: Essays and Reviews (2023) includes far-ranging pieces on poets, novelists, moralists and historians. Lord Andrew Roberts, Churchill's biographer, called the book "beautifully written," "brave" and "wise." In Newman and his Critics Edward Short offers the third dimension of a fascinatingly complex, three-dimensional picture of St. John Henry Newman--the earlier volumes Newman and his Contemporaries and Newman and his Family providing the other two dimensions. In the mirror the book provides of Newman's immediate historical context, an enthralling and intricate picture of Newman the saint, the friend, the priest, the intellectual, the apologist and the controversialist emerges. This capstone volume brings the author's trilogy to a masterly close. It is full of judiciously chosen quotations from a paradigmatic range of interlocutors, critics in the best and highest sense of the word, and interlaced with passages from Newman's own works, all adroitly orchestrated and suffused with a deep understanding of Newman and a thorough command of his texts. Newman and his Critics makes for bracing, rewarding reading. The first and the last chapters, on Richard William Church and Ian Ker respectively, are alone worth the price of the book. Dr. Reinhard Huetter , Author of John Henry Newman on Truth and its Counterfeits: A Guide to Our Times In Newman and his Critics , the third volume of his trilogy, Edward Short provides ten fascinating portraits of Newman's most consequential critics. What emerges in each chapter is not only sympathy for those who critically-and sometimes caustically-engaged Newman's positions but also an even more profound esteem for the English saint and his tireless defense of Catholic truth as it unfolds on his long and luminous journey. Short's scholarship is a gift for the whole Church, for whom Newman remains a prophetic voice in a relativistic age. Bishop James Massa, Rector of St. Joseph's Seminary, New York, Auxillary Bishop of Brooklyn "Newman never shied away from criticism. Newman and His Critics is an insightful journey into the way Newman dealt with those who challenged his positions on such matters as faith and reason, the devout life, conscience and the nature of belief. If Newman faced his critics with unfailing charity and respect, he never backed down from proclaiming the truth in love. We live in an age of uncivil discourse, harsh acrimony and bitter division. In his masterly study, Edward Short has given us Newman at his best. May Newman and His Critics help us to engage with our critics with greater love, sincere compassion and authentic dignity." Bishop James D. Conley, Lincoln, Nebraska Who will cr