INSCRIBED TO A LEADING CATHOLIC LAYMAN The Office and Work of Universities

Presentation copy of a collection of Newman’s papers written while he worked on his ‘great undertaking’ in Dublin, the establishment of the Catholic University of Ireland. Newman spent most of the 1850s in Dublin working on this project as the university’s first Rector from which emerged this book and his classic study, The Idea of a University. This is one of several known presentation copies with a printed ‘From the Author’ slip and a personalised inscription which together suggest that it may have been published in this form in part as a fund raiser for his work in Dublin and Birmingham. This copy went to one of Newman’s major supporters in the West Midlands in the foundation of the Oratory School, Robert Berkeley.

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Blue textured cloth publisher’s binding with gilt spine lettering, rubbed and bumped to corners. Yellow coated endpapers; cracking along paper covering the gutter. Newman’s inscription to front pastedown: ‘Robert Berkeley Jr Feb 24 1857 From the Author’. Printed ‘From the Author’ slip bound in opposite the title page. Text complete; cracking along paper over gutter at final endpaper. Offsetting from a couple of insertions - newsprint? - now long gone.

CATHOLIC CONTEXT: Robert Berkeley of Spetchley Park in Worcestershire (1827-97) was the heir of an old Catholic family who contributed £50 to the foundation of Newman’s Oratory School around the time of this gift - the school opened two years later in 1859. Newman’s reputation continues to grow both within sacred and secular circles.