A01=Melanie McDonagh
Aubrey Beardsley
Author_Melanie McDonagh
british catholicism
Category=NHB
Category=NHD
Category=NHTB
Category=QRAX
Category=QRMB
Category=QRMB1
conversion
convert
David Jones
Decadent
Elizabeth Anscombe
eq_bestseller
eq_history
eq_isMigrated=1
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
Evelyn Waugh
G. K. Chesterton
Graham Greene
Gwen John
Muriel Spark
Oscar Wilde
religion
Product details
- ISBN 9780300266078
- Dimensions: 156 x 235mm
- Publication Date: 25 Nov 2025
- Publisher: Yale University Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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Why did Catholicism attract so many unlikely converts in Britain during the twentieth century?
The twentieth century is understood as an era of growing, inexorable secularism, yet in Britain between the 1890s and the 1960s there was a marked turn to Rome. In the first half of the century, Catholicism became an intellectual and spiritual fashion attracting more than half a million converts, including fascinating artists, writers, and thinkers. What drew these men and women to join the church, and what difference did conversion make to them?
Melanie McDonagh examines the lives of these notable converts from the perspective of their faith. For the Decadent circle of Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde—who converted on his deathbed—artists such as Gwen John and David Jones, the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, and novelists including G. K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark, Catholicism offered stability in increasingly febrile times. McDonagh explores their lives and influences, the reaction to their conversions, and the priests who initiated them into their faith.
The twentieth century is understood as an era of growing, inexorable secularism, yet in Britain between the 1890s and the 1960s there was a marked turn to Rome. In the first half of the century, Catholicism became an intellectual and spiritual fashion attracting more than half a million converts, including fascinating artists, writers, and thinkers. What drew these men and women to join the church, and what difference did conversion make to them?
Melanie McDonagh examines the lives of these notable converts from the perspective of their faith. For the Decadent circle of Aubrey Beardsley and Oscar Wilde—who converted on his deathbed—artists such as Gwen John and David Jones, the philosopher Elizabeth Anscombe, and novelists including G. K. Chesterton, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Muriel Spark, Catholicism offered stability in increasingly febrile times. McDonagh explores their lives and influences, the reaction to their conversions, and the priests who initiated them into their faith.
Melanie McDonagh is a journalist who has written extensively about religion and ideas for the Spectator, The Times, and the Daily Telegraph. She is writer at large for the Evening Standard, and she has a doctorate in history from the University of Cambridge.
