As the daughter of Wilfred Ward, author of one of the standard biographies of Newman, and grand-daughter of William George Ward, Newman's contemporary and colleague, Maisie Ward has inherited a consuming interest in Newman and his period in English religious history. Furthermore, she has had access to a quantity of hitherto unpublished letters of Newman. These date from his childhood and youth and from the pre- Roman Catholic period of Newman's life. This phase of Newman's spiritual development she feels has been neglected by biographers (her father devoted only forty-five pages of a two-volume book to this period). Maisie Ward makes no pretense of producing a scholarly book. It is rather a labor of love and will appeal largely to the wide group of people already interested in Newman. The author has consciously endeavored to the objective in her treatment of the Evangelical and Anglican phases of Newman's life and with considerable success. However, the reader is always conscious that this is a Catholic writing about an outstanding convert to Catholicism for Catholic readers.