Covers a significant period in Newman's life, with social ferment and political tension: the Corn Laws, Chartism, an inexperienced monarch, weak government, and foreign problems. Contemporary writers such as Carlyle attracted Newman's intention, and university reform was a live issue. we are now given all Newman's extant letters for these years in full, with seventy complete letters and further parts of letters to Newman, and a vast amount of information in both the footnots and index about Newman's correspondents and the persons and incidents mentioned by them. And there is often the marvelous phrase or sentence ... The editor, Gerard Tracey, is to be warmly congratulated on a magnificent achievement, and for a scholarship both accurate and informative.